“It’s important that this story and situation stay alive.”
September 9, 2018(Please read and share the attached Hartford Courant article regarding the questions I continue to ask about the Malloy administration’s plans to build a state police firearms training facility in Griswold, adjacent to Pachaug State Forest. Send me your comments at [email protected] and include your name and town. Thank you!)
State Auditors Scrutinize Gun Range Purchase Agreement
A state watchdog agency is scrutinizing plans to build a state police firearms training facility in Griswold, adjacent to Pachaug State Forest.
State Sen. Heather Somers has engaged the office of Auditors of Public Accounts to review the purchase agreement for the Lee Road property and the process that led up to it.
She said she met last month with state auditors Robert Kane and John Geragosian, asking them to examine the discrepancy between the property’s assessed value and its asking price.
“I thought it was important that an independent agency take a look at the whole thing. Was the right procedure followed? We don’t believe it was,” said Somers.
She said she also wants to know whether the purchase agreement went to the state properties review board, as required by law.
Geragosian confirmed that his office would be looking into the state plan.
The state auditors recently completed a scathing report on the UConn Health contract with the state’s Department of Correction, revealing flaws in the system that left incarcerated persons at risk for misdiagnosis and sub-standard care.
The office’s website says that the state auditors are tasked with providing “independent, unbiased and objective opinions and recommendations on the operations of state government and the state’s effectiveness in safeguarding its assets.”
The office employs just over 100 other certified public accountants and certified fraud examiners. Kane and Geragosian are appointed to their posts by the legislature.
State officials took their plans for a new state police gun range around to public presentations at nearly a dozen eastern Connecticut towns two years ago.
Opposition from residents in most of the towns led them to narrow their list down to Griswold, where a citizen group called Save Pachaug Forest/Keep Griswold Quiet has been fighting the proposal ever since.
Opponents say the facility will create lead pollution and destroy the quiet ambiance of the state forest, which surrounds the 103-acre site on three sides.
They cite concerns about noise, property values, safety, and destruction of wildlife habitat, as well as the $1.1 million asking price on the property, which is four times the land’s assessed value.
They also dispute state officials’ $7 million estimate of the project’s costs.
They contend that, based on the per-square-foot cost of recent state projects, a more realistic estimate would be closer to $30 million.
The fact that the landowner, Lewis Button III, is a state employee, has also raised ethical questions.
State officials plan on bonding to finance the project, but Somers said that she and other legislators were successful in eliminating $4.25 million in bonding for the project in the last legislative session.
“It’s important that this story and situation stay alive,” she said.