David Collins

Sens. Cathy Osten and Heather Somers: Opposite views on whether UConn might close Avery Point

I don’t hear often from Sen. Cathy Osten of Sprague, but she did reach out recently, in her lobbying to protect the University of Connecticut at Avery Point, which she worries may be in danger of being closed.

Osten is promoting a bill she has introduced with other eastern Connecticut Democratic lawmakers that calls for $40 million in bonding to build housing at the Avery Point campus.

I think of Osten as a level-headed, serious legislator with a lot of experience in Hartford, especially with money matters, as a longtime Senate chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee.

And when Osten says she believes the University of Connecticut may be starving Avery Point of money and resources, with an eye to closing the satellite campus, I would call that a Code Red Alert for eastern Connecticut.

She’s not someone I would expect to sign on to preposterous conspiracy theories or idle UConn intrigue.

A thorough recent news story by Kimberly Drelich of The Day polled a number of eastern Connecticut lawmakers who have signed on to the legislation to improve Avery Point, instead of letting it whither, and make it a full functioning residential campus.

The lone exception to expressions of local UConn worries among lawmakers queried by Drelich was Sen. Heather Somers of Groton, who scoffed at the idea that UConn pooh-bahs might close Avery Point.

“They are not sure that (housing) works right now at Avery Point,” Somers said, almost reverentially, about the wisdom of university decision makers. “But that doesn’t mean they’re closing Avery Point.”

It’s true the university says there are no current plans to close Avery Point, but it also admits it is working on “strategic” strategy, which it won’t disclose yet, for all all of the school’s satellite campuses.

That seems especially ominous, given Osten’s report of conversations she’s heard in Hartford. I think she’s right to raise an alarm.

Enrollment at Avery Point is declining dramatically, and it is running a deficit, about $13 million a year, while UConn campuses in Hartford, Stamford and Waterbury are being indulged with housing and curriculum spending.

Certainly students interested in attending UConn in Groton face almost impossible housing challenges unless they can live with family nearby. Housing demand driven by Electric Boat hiring has made off-campus student housing here beyond prohibitive.

Besides, housing is what will make Avery Point the remarkable campus, with a spectacular waterfront setting, that it should be, a jewel in the university crown, not a forgotten stepchild.

Osten and other eastern Connecticut Democrats in the General Assembly, with their Avery Point investment legislation, recognize, too, the strategic importance of a healthy and respected institution for higher learning at the heart of the region.

And as Osten fretted, in my conversation with her, imagine how badly the state would handle a shuttering of the Avery Point campus. It wasn’t that long ago that the state almost sold its abandoned and derelict Mystic Oral School, also premier real estate, to a convicted criminal.

I don’t agree much with the politics of Trump-supporting Sen. Somers, but it does puzzle me that she doesn’t seem inclined to help the region’s legislative delegation push this Avery Point boulder up the hill.

It’s hard to argue how the region wouldn’t be better served by a thriving university campus where students can both live and study.

Sen. Somers wasn’t shy that long ago about proposing $10 million in state bonding money, for infrastructure improvements for a Mystic housing project proposed by her wealthy campaign donors. Fortunately, the town and state environmental officials turned down the Somers-sponsored Smiler’s Wharf boondoggle, the overbuilding of a downtown Mystic flood zone.

Of course it’s an election year, and maybe Somers can still be convinced that lawmakers should be telling state university executives what they want, not the other way around.

And maybe she might come to realize that investing in higher education in your own town is actually a really good idea.

This is the opinion of David Collins, davidcollinsct@gmail.com

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