Oct. 22—NEW HAVEN — East Haven Mayor Joe Carfora has rejected Tweed New Haven Regional Airport's request for a face-to-face meeting and an appearance by Tweed officials before the Town Council to try to iron out differences between the town, the airport and the city of New Haven related to airport expansion.
East Haven, which airport officials said previously rejected a June proposal that would have provided the town with a total of $75 million in benefits, including $43 million in profit-sharing from a new terminal, still has "a (Freedom of Information Act) request pending" and "to date, we have not received any of the requested information," Town Attorney Michael Luzzi wrote in a letter dated Thursday.
"Once we are in receipt of adequate information that we seek, we will reach out to schedule meetings with all relevant parties," Luzzi wrote to Tweed New Haven Airport Authority Executive Director Sean Scanlon.
Carfora and Luzzi criticized the benefits proposal, saying it had no details to back it up. But Scanlon said it was a real proposal.
"We put several offers on the table over the course of several months to address one of the mayor's fundamental, overarching concerns," which is, "Is there going to be a burden on the town?" said Scanlon, also a Democratic state representative from Guilford and the Democratic candidate for state comptroller in the November election.
"They were real offers, concrete offers with substance behind them," Scanlon said. "I just think it's a little strange that the mayor is asking us for more information and criticizing what he says is a lack of information and yet he won't meet with us ... or allow us to address the council."
According to documents officials from Tweed and Avports, which runs the airport, said they presented to Carfora in June, they're offering East Haven:
— $3.5 million in community benefits such as road improvements and traffic calming, up by $1 million from what was previously offered.
— Prepayment of $1.5 million in permitting fees.
— The city and the airport's support to obtain $500,000 in state funding to develop a new public safety complex. (Carfora said it's actually $600,000 for a study of the new complex, and East Haven obtained the state's commitment on its own.)
— $36 million in estimated state PILOT payments over the life of the project; more than $500,000 a year after the new terminal opens.
— $43 million in shared profits over the project life; an estimated $250,000 per year after the new project opens.
Both Carfora and Luzzi questioned the veracity of the proposals from Tweed and its manager and partner in the $100 million airport expansion project, which would extend Tweed's main runway and build a new terminal with up to six gates, along with a new airport entrance, on the East Haven side.
"They never offered us that," said Carfora. "That seems to be the whisper campaign that's going on — that they're throwing the mayor boatloads of money. ... They're not throwing us anything, and frankly, they're not even giving us the information that we've been asking for for months," Carfora said.
"They're not doing anything for us. We're not getting anything," he said. "No one is stepping up to the plate for the town of East Haven."
What East Haven would like to see are two entrances to Tweed, one in New Haven and one in East Haven, so all the traffic and burdens won't be "dumped" on East Haven, Carfora said.
"Why isn't the city of New Haven going to bat with regard to the entrances and exits?" he asked. "There should be a shared burden. ... Everything is being dumped onto East Haven. Everything.
"They're making this whole thing an undertaking of public relations," he said. "They're not coming back with any real numbers. ... It's the bottom line: East Haven is not getting anything. ... They're not giving us answers, they're not giving us noise studies, they're not giving us traffic studies — nothing," Carfora said.
"We would talk to them," he said. "Listen, my door is always open, but I'm not going to be talking to people who are going to be talking out of both sides of their mouths."
He specifically said, "I want them to talk to me and my advisors before they talk to the council" and "I want all the documents first. ... It's not only about the money. It's about the quality of life for these people in the town of East Haven."
Luzzi said of the offers, "These are not numbers that they could sustain."
"We asked for specific term sheets," but "nothing was provided prior to any meeting," Luzzi said. "The mayor and I asked whether Avports had any other (similar) agreement in any of its other facilities," and were told it didn't, he said, "and it became more frustrating as time went on."
Avports spokesman Andrew King said "we never got anything back from them regarding what they think their costs are. Although it has been repeatedly claimed that the airport will impose a significant 'burden' on East Haven, despite repeated requests for such information we have not been provided any detailed projections or analyses of such expected costs," he said.
Luzzi said "it's hard to accept the numbers that they provide us when they would not and have not provided any details. ... The more questions we asked, the fewer amounts of information we received, and if became very frustrating."
Nevertheless, "I think it's fair to say that we will absolutely meet with them" once they give East Haven what it asked for, he said.
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