At Monday evening’s Board of Selectmen‘s meeting, first selectman Bill Brennan told his fellow BoS members that he has requested a meeting with Yankee Gas to discuss the delays in getting an installation agreement signed. The town has anticipated the utilities plan to expand natural gas lines into the town center, and Brennan sounded frustrated that there seems to be a delay in getting the T’s crossed and the I’s dotted.

Brennan said the following:

“I’ve requested a meeting with the Yankee Gas Chief Operating Officer. We’ve been concerned with getting the last pieces of this together. We don’t have the installation agreement, and it’s their legal team where it’s held up. Even though we’re beating up on Mike [Collins, the YG representative working with the town], it’s not his job to write the agreement.

“We’re going to try to give him help by going up and speaking with the president and chief operating officer, who we have met and who has been part of our meetings in the past. We’ll ask if we can get some assistance. Even just setting up the meeting, I’m waiting on getting a specific date. We’ll keep pushing on that.

“On the very good side, we’re talking to the construction people, and they’re saying, ‘We’re ready to go! We’ve got everything lined up, we’re ready.’ They’re setting up their RFPs with vendors. So we have a ‘go’ project, but I do want to get that installation agreement done. And they still haven’t met with the [Wilton] Inland Wetlands Commission They’re not required to do it, but they do it to explain the project. That was supposed to have been set up.

“We’ve got these little things hanging out there that have been bugging me, so I finally told Mike, ‘We’re going to come up to Berlin. Set the meeting up.’” Mike felt it would be helpful I think. I told him, ‘We’re not doing this to embarrass you, we’re doing this because it’s taking forever–remember, we were supposed to have this agreement three or four months ago. Now we’re within 13 weeks of putting shovels in the ground. So we need to go meet them.

That’s the latest, stay tuned.”