Political Capitol

Staff with the General Assembly’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee are alerting members that an invitational forum – as opposed to a public hearing – has been scheduled for Monday, April 19 at the capitol on the newly signed 35-year-contract governing operations of Connecticut’s 23 highway rest stops.

The state Department of Transportation and Project Service LLC, which was awarded the contract, will be present to answer the economic and other questions that have begun mounting over the deal, announced by Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell late last year.

Paul Landino, president of Project Service LLC, said he is looking forward to discussing it Monday.

“I am very proud of the project and of the work we are trying to do here and would discuss it with any group,” Landino said. “I’m more than willing … to talk about it. I think we’re going to do a terrific job and am looking forward to the process. This is very important work to be done and the rest stops need a lot of work to improve and the model we created is going to be excellent for the highway and the people driving the highways.”

For more details on the contract and some of the concerns, visit these links to our stories:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Fiscal-impact-of-rest-stop-contract-questioned-by-443315.php

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/DOT-chooses-local-over-experienced-443601.php

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Should-Legislature-get-to-weigh-in-on-long-443335.php

http://blog.ctnews.com/politicalcapitol/2010/04/11/rest-stop-contract-adds-wrinkle-to-highway-toll-debate/

The press corps shivered our way through a news conference this afternoon on the well-shaded northern steps of the capitol, hosted by former Republican U.S. Congressman Rob Simmons.

Simmons is fighting to revive his political career by seeking the GOP nomination to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated after three decades by Democrat Chris Dodd. The convention is in May.

Standing in his way is self-funded Republican candidate Linda McMahon of Greenwich, whose family founded the Stamford-based international World Wrestling Entertainment empire.

Simmons has for months been trying to use WWE’s sometimes scandalous history and controversial programming against McMahon, and yet in the latest Quinnipiac University poll, she lead the former Congressman 44 to 34 percent.

Chief on Simmons’ mind today were reports Friday by The Day of New London and the Politico website revisiting allegations about whether McMahon in the late 1980s interfered in a federal steroids investigation and tipped off a doctor working for her company.

“This is the stuff of a mystery novel and Hollywood thrillers,” Simmons said. “It leads one to ask the question ‘how can you write the laws if you don’t feel bound by them’?”

A reporter pointed out McMahon was never charged with obstruction of justice, but Simmons said McMahon still has to answer questions about her actions.

McMahon campaign spokesman Ed Patru, who was standing nearby, listening, told reporters afterward McMahon said all she plans to on the topic over the weekend and Simmons’ charges are “reckless, outrageous and irresponsible.” Oh, and by the way, this is a 21-year-old story and Rob is falling behind-in-the-polls because “he has no ideas. He’s focused more on wrestling and smear campaigns than any ideas,” Patru said.

Simmons clearly feels disdain for McMahon and for professional wrestling, and I’ve stated before that WWE is important to the race because it’s all McMahon’s got. Never having served in office, she’s running on her business experience and using the fortune her family made in professional wrestling to fund her Senate bid.

I pressed Simmons on why he has not confronted McMahon face-to-face with these issues during the few debates they have had, instead of leaving the WWE-related criticism to his campaign staff or, as he did today, lobbing charges when his opponent is not present to respond in-person. Simmons gave his standard answer – the debate questions are set. I pointed out that candidates veer off topic during debates all the time.

I also asked Simmons why, if WWE is such a concern to voters, McMahon is ahead of him in the race for the nomination according to Quinnipiac University? (Although his campaign fairly pointed out that her “negatives” are pretty high in today’s Rasmussen Poll, which also shows Simmons has a slightly better chance against Democrat Richard Blumenthal).

He blamed her self-funded advertising campaign.

“We have made a discreet choice not to spend money on advertising,” Simmons said.

I don’t know Rob Simmons well. But I continue to be fascinated by the fact that he is so reluctant to say what he means and cut loose against not only McMahon, but fellow Republicans who have endorsed her or are thinking about it.

Simmons stood before reporters today and talked about the need to elect a U.S. Senator with “character.”And he re-iterated his 40-year-record of public service, including military tours in Vietnam, a career with the Central Intelligence Agency, a stint teaching at the University of Connecticut, and his political life in both the state General Assembly and Congress

In his heart I believe he really wants to say: “I served my country in Vietnam. V-I-E-T-N-A-M!!! I worked in intelligence while Linda McMahon and WWE ruined yours with their trashy television programs. I’ve given good years of my life to the Republican Party, and yet she comes out of nowhere with her millions and is leading me in the polls. This is a joke, right?!?! I’m ashamed my party is making me work so hard against this woman!”

But Simmons does not come even close to saying what any reporter covering this race knows he is truly feeling right now as he struggles to get his message out.

At the end of the press conference I asked Simmons, who does not intend to primary McMahon should she win the nomination, if he envisioned any scenario during which he could give an honest endorsement of his opponent.

Instead of saying “not on your life and here’s why…” Simmons politely and calmly responded: “I expect to win the nomination … I believe in my party. As for future endorsements, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”

Here are Simmons’ full remarks, as handed out by his campaign staff:

Thank you for coming today.

For the first time in a generation, Connecticut has an open U.S. Senate seat. It is important that all voters have a choice in November and that they can choose a candidate who has the experience, record and character worthy of representing them in the U.S. Senate.

My name is Rob Simmons, and I am seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat at the Republican convention in Hartford on May 21^st.

I believe that public office is a public trust. I entered this race a year ago because I felt the incumbent had violated the public trust. Now, I am running harder than ever because I believe Connecticut deserves a candidate who reflects our values and our character.

Over the past few months there have been troubling revelations about one of the Republican candidates, Mrs. McMahon, who is the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE. Questions have been raised about how she has raised her money which she is now using to fund her senate campaign.

We’ve learned of a sparse voting record; which includes never voting in a Republican primary; we’ve learned of tens of thousands of dollars to fund the campaigns of liberal Democrats; we’ve learned of television programming that includes gratuitous violence against women and humiliation of the mentally handicapped; we have heard of Congressional investigations of the WWE for steroid abuse; we’ve seen WWE performers die an untimely death one after another as a result of the choices the McMahons have made to ignore, if not encourage, potentially deadly behavior in and outside the ring; and the list goes on.

Just this past week, we learned that far from being a self proclaimed political “outsider,” McMahon spent over a million dollars employing lobbyists, lied about her college degree; lied about the WWE record on her application for the Connecticut Board of Education; and, most shockingly, interfered in a federal criminal investigation in order to cover up links between the WWE and the steroid dealer, Dr. George Zahorian.

The revelations uncovered by Ted Mann of The Day in New London show that she knew her company was engaged in steroid deals with Dr. Zahorian; that she initially took deliberate steps to stop other company officials from cutting ties with Zahorian; and only after learning he was under investigation did she seek to end the relationship. In doing so, she ordered Zahorian to be “tipped off” about the federal investigation by a company executive, Pat Patterson.

In fulfilling Mrs. McMahon’s order, Patterson instructed Dr. Zahorian to call him back from a payphone and destroy evidence of his transactions with the WWE and its wrestlers. This is the stuff of mystery novels and Hollywood thrillers; it does not add credibility to a U.S. Senate campaign.

These are the actions of someone who does not respect the law and it leads one to ask, how can she write the laws if she doesn’t feel bound by them?

McMahon’s claim that she does not remember any of the details of these events is not credible. It reflects a pattern of false and misleading statements, a refusal to answer questions and selective amnesia.

Mrs. McMahon is building her Senate candidacy entirely on her business experience at the WWE. She needs to be held accountable for that very troubling record.

Voters do have a choice, however. I bring to this race over 40 years of public service including 37 years in the U.S. Army, several tours in Vietnam, 10 years in the CIA, another 10 years as a teacher at UCONN and Yale, 16 years as an elected official and two years as Connecticut’s first Business Advocate.

My public service career is an open book. I’ve disclosed personal finances, cast thousands of public votes, and given my congressional records to the Dodd Center at UCONN. People may not agree with every vote I have cast, but I have never done anything to dishonor them or the offices I have held.

Thank you for your attention. I am happy to take any questions.

If Connecticut lawmakers decide to install automatic highway tolls on state roadways to boost revenues, the policy could cut into another income source – the payments the state stands to receive as part of a new 35-year contract for food and fuel services at 23 highway rest stops.

Our newspapers today carried a package of three stories on the recent 35-year deal Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s administration struck with Project Service LLC to renovate and manage the rest stops. Reporter Martin Cassidy outlined the economics of the deal, which some lawmakers are beginning to question, and I wrote about the selection of Project Service LLC and whether the legislature should have a role in approving such lengthy contracts in the future.

We didn’t have room to point out that the contract also allows Project Service LLC to seek a reduction in the “minimal annual payments” – essentially rent – paid Connecticut to run the rest stops should the tenant believe tolls are hurting business.

During an interview last week I asked Paul Landino, president of Project Service, about whether he has taken a side in the ongoing toll debate, and he said: “We don’t care about tolls because people have to drive the highways to get through the state … Basically in the contract for any loss in traffic there is something in the contract which provides a rent credit.”

Under the deal Project Service LLC is, in the first four years, paying $1 million to manage the 23 rest stops – that’s compared with $6 million paid in 2007 under the prior contract and $2.5 million paid 22 years ago in 1988.

The contract states if “under Prime Contractor’s reasonable belief that a reduction of the aggregate Gross Receipts and the number of gallons of Fuel sold at all Service Areas has occurred as a result of tolls being placed on any of or a portion of any of the Roadways” then Project Service LLC has the right to hire a third party consultant to analyze the situation and recommend a retroactive rent reduction.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation then has the option to hire a third party consultant of its own. If that consultant does not see eye-to-eye with Project Service’s consultant, then yet another consultant is hired “equally paid for by” DOT and Project Service.

The DOT can skip hiring a consultant altogether, but under the contract must then grant a cut in the rent to Project Service, even if the state does not agree with the tenant’s analysis of the impact of tolls on rest stop revenues.

The DOT and Project Service can also “mutually agree to a reduction of the minimal annual payments at any time as a result of tolling.”

So this is yet one more thing state legislators and toll advocates need to consider.

Ted Mann at The Day newspapers is the latest reporter to take a hard look at the darker side of Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment’s history as a result of founder Linda McMahon’s bid for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

Mann in a juicy report published tonight turned a spotlight on court records outlining McMahon’s little-publicized role in a federal probe into steroids involving her family’s company in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

Bottom line – she gave a doctor the heads-up about the investigation, which some argue may have altered the outcome. Read Mann’s account for a greater understanding of the situation and McMahon’s side.

Of course, in these anti-government times, that revelation could probably earn McMahon, who is running as a political outsider, some votes (I guess I need to clarify that I meant that sarcastically, since I got confused e-mails from an upset reader and an opposing campaign. Maybe I should have ended it with the wink/smile symbol. Oh well.)

McMahon is touting her experience as a business woman as she campaigns against a handful of other Republicans, including former U.S. Congressman Rob Simmons and celebrity economist Peter Schiff.

And she is using the fortune she accumulated from WWE to self-finance her campaign.

Despite the best efforts of critics like Simmons to use WWE against McMahon, she appears to have the most momentum of the Republican candidates heading into May’s nominating convention.

When I bumped into state Rep. Claire Janowksi, D-Vernon at the capitol yesterday I had to ask her about Linda McMahon’s recent decision to resign from the state Board of Education after only one year in office.

Janowski is co-chairman of the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee, charged with screening candidates for appointed positions within state government and recommending their approval by the full House of Representatives and Senate.

McMahon, whose family founded Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment and who is pursuing the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, last week resigned from the school board. McMahon cited a recent ethics ruling that made it a conflict-of-interest for her to serve and simultaneously run a self-funded campaign for office.

When McMahon launched her Senate bid in September, Janowski, who had backed her nomination, told me she was concerned McMahon would not complete her two year term.

“She was really sincere in expressing her interest in serving the community,” Janowski said at the time. “When people come before my committee, longevity is something of a concern to me because it takes a lot to select candidates.”

Janowski yesterday said regardless of why McMahon stepped down, she is glad she did.

“To me the thing is can you campaign for a Congressional seat at the same time? I don’t think you can,” Janowski said. She said this will give someone else an opportunity to serve.

When I asked McMahon campaign spokesman Ed Patru last year how long his boss intended to remain a school board member, he said: “She’ll remain on the board as long as she believes she can continue to remain fully engaged and contribute.”

I asked Janowski if she regretted supporting McMahon in the first place considering how her nomination turned out.

“Things come up. You look at your options,” Janowski said of McMahon’s decision to run for Senate, adding “it’s a volunteer position.”

The big political news of the moment is that Democratic Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, who first was eyeing the Governor’s office and now wants to be Attorney General, in a desposition revealed her lack of legal expertise.

Or, in the words of state GOP Chairman Chris Healy, “someone watching ‘Law & Order’ every night” is probably more suited for the Attorney General’s job.

But I actually think Hartford Courant columnist/radio host Colin McEnroe nailed it in his blog this morning, in which he writes that today such negative media reports appear to do little to alter voters’ minds about candidates.

Here’s what McEnroe had to say:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Peter Schiff in an e-mail this afternoon rightly and politely took me to task for not including him in an article I wrote this past weekend about the state’s social conservatives.

Although there are a handful of Republicans in the race for the GOP Senate nomination, the contest is often framed – to the dismay of Schiff and his supporters – as being between Linda McMahon and former U.S. Congressman Rob Simmons. View, for example, the most recent poll on the race from Quinnipiac University.

So my story explored whether social conservatives who do not support Simmons because he is a pro-choice Republican are considering backing the a-little-bit-less-pro-choice McMahon, despite some of the programming her family company, Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment, has produced over the years.

Schiff in his e-mail to me made a strong case that social conservatives who may be holding their noses to vote for McMahon should seriously consider his candidacy.

Here’s what Schiff had to say and here’s a link to a profile of the candidate that we recently carried in our newspapers.

—————-

Brian,

Why don’t you write a follow up story titled “Why aren’t Connecticut conservatives even considering Peter Schiff, who is clearly the most conservative candidate in the race?”

I am the most state’s rights advocate of all the candidates (though
Vinnie may be with me on these issues as well, he lacks the funds or
campaign infrastructure to mount a credible race). I oppose any
federal restrictions on abortion, oppose any federal funding of
abortion, and believe Roe VS. Wade to have been wrongly decided and
would vote to nominate Federal Judges who want to overturn it. While I
am personally opposed to partial birth abortions, this too is a state’s
rights issue. I do not believe the Federal government has the
constitutional authority to ban it, but I would like individual states
to ban it, and feel that neither the Federal Government nor federal
courts have the right to interfere.

Plus on all the other issues conservatives care about, I am far and away
the best candidate in the race without any of Linda’s baggage. Perhaps
one of the reasons conservatives are not considering me is that
reporters constantly leave my name out of the mix when discussing the
race. Conservatives reading your article would have no idea that I was
even running and would falsely conclude that they had no a credible
alternative to choosing between the lesser of two evils.

Peter D. Schiff, President
Euro Pacific Capital, Inc.

Responding to yesterday’s news that the legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding and Transportation committees want a join hearing on the recent, three-decade deal to overhaul/manage Connecticut’s 23 highway rest stops, Transportation Commissioner Joseph Marie sent out the following e-mail:

Subject: RE: DOT service/travel plaza controversy

All: It should be noted that we offered to brief the Transportation Committee on several occassions both before and after the contract was signed. The leadership instead opted for two private briefings, one held in June and the other shortly after the contract was signed. It is my understanding that the Commerce Committee leadership was also invited to attend. We provided an in-depth and thorough review of the selection process and the business decision metrics. It should also be noted that the deal was reviewed by an independent third party which concluded definitively that consumating the contract was very much in the best interest of the state. Committee members knew full well that revenues would decline during the short to intermediate term because of the level of investment being committed by the successful proposer. Senator McDonald inquired about this very fact during the June briefing. Let’s welcome this hearing and a full vetting of the facts. The deal we signed stands on its merits. Joe Marie.

And fellow Hearst reporter Martin Cassidy reported on lawmakers’ initial concerns with the rest stop contract in this December article:

By Martin B. Cassidy
STAFF WRITER
State fiscal staff are reviewing the recently finalized contract to operate the 23 rest areas on Interstate 95, the Merritt and Wilbur Cross parkways, and I-395, after State Sen. Andrew McDonald has raised questions whether the agreement will yield a fair share of profits from the lucrative enterprise to the state for the next three decades.
Mary Janecki, head of the Office of Legislative Research, said staff members are gathering and reviewing documents from the DOT about the contract to be able to answer financial questions about the 35-year deal.
“It doesn’t appear to include all the assumptions necessary to support what the financial projections for future revenue are,” McDonald, D-Stamford, said of the contract which runs until Dec. 6, 2044. “The reliability of those figures and how it was predicted all need to be clarified.”
McDonald this month asked the Office of Fiscal Analysis and Legislative Research to gather and review documents related to the 475-page contract, including revenue projections discussed in the agreement as well as a separate agreement requiring Exxon-Mobil to conduct future cleanup of the sites and how performance would be measured by the DOT.
Last month, the state signed a contract to allow Project Services LLC., a partnership that is owned by Washington, D.C., private- equity firm Carlyle Group, with Doctor’s Associates, a North Haven-based developer of Subway restaurants, to upgrade and manage the rest areas.
Alliance Energy, a Connecticut fuel distributor, will sell gas and run convenience stores at all 23 rest areas, according to the DOT.
The partnership began taking control of the fuel and food concessions at the rest plazas last week, said Paul Landino, who serves both as president of Project Services LLC and Doctor’s Associates/Paul Landino.
Center Plan Development of Middletown, which is owned by Robert Landino, Paul Landino’s brother, will design and build the new plazas and remodeling plans, Paul Landino said.
The contract would give the state a minimum of $248 million in revenue from the sale of gas and other products at the revamped rest areas, in addition to at least $178.3 million to knock down and rebuild three plazas on Interstate 95 and remodel the remaining 20 facilities, according to the Department of Transportation.
Last year, the DOT said it intended to hire a single contractor to operate the plazas and coordinate all the necessary services to upgrade the facilities.
McDonald said it is unclear how transportation officials estimated the $248 million in revenue, which is inconsistent with projections in a state-commissioned study released two years ago.
The DOT’s Connecticut Statewide Rest Area and Service Plaza Study projected the state could increase its annual revenue from $6.3 million to $18 million to $20 million from operating the 23 plazas.
“Over the length of the agreement, it averages out to about $300,000 a year from each site for the state which doesn’t seem like a lot when they are going to be making hundreds of millions on the deal,” McDonald said.
Under the new contract, the DOT would receive a minimum of $561,000 in the first year and $1 million a year from 2011 through 2014. After the payments increase to a minimum of $2 million in 2015, annual payments will increase in half-million dollar increments every five years until the contract ends in 2044.
DOT spokesman Judd Everhart said the financial terms of the agreement were lucrative to the state and reflected the partnership’s overhaul of the rest plazas to make them more attractive to travelers, a higher priority than boosting revenue from the operations.
Over the length of the agreement, Connecticut’s annual share of revenue from sale of fuel and other products will increase gradually, he said.
The state’s share of  revenue of sales will increase from 1 percent to a top rate of 5.5 percent in 2044 under the agreement, and will increase gradually from
1 cent for each gallon of gas sold to 2 1/4 cents by the end of the deal, Everhart noted.
“Making money was not the primary goal of this agreement,” he said. “Present conditions are such that the facilities are unattractive, tired looking, and in need of repair; there is a confluence of poor, unsafe traffic patterns between cars and trucks, the fuel island designs are inefficient and unsafe and there is minimal food-choice variety on I-95 and no fresh food options on the Merritt Parkway and I-395.”
Landino said that the state will get minimum payments set forth in the contract regardless of how well the rest plazas perform, and said the capital investment in revamping the plazas entailed some risk for the Carlyle/Doctor’s Associates partnership.
“What’s most important here is that the facilities must be upgraded and require significant capital to do so,” Landino said. “Even on the most conservative financial representations, this deal is extremely financially lucrative for the state and if the facilities perform well everybody should be extremely happy.”
McDonald said he would also like more details on ExxonMobil’s agreements to address any environmental remediation on the site.
State Sen. Donald DeFronzo, D-New Britain, head of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, said that he was meeting with DOT Commissioner Joseph Marie to spell out the specifics of the deal, including how existing environmental problems would be dealt with and under what conditions the state could terminate the contract.
“The contract is already signed but we have questions about the time frame for the improvements and what the impact to motorists will be for the next three to five years,” DeFronzo said. “It is a major contract and a long-term deal and we want to know how can we measure the effectiveness of the contractor against the expectations in the contract.”