New London ― A bookkeeping request involving a $3 million grant donated by an offshore wind company for fishing pier improvements prompted a spirited debate among City Council members this week over how to use the money.

The issue, which will be further discussed at the council’s Nov. 3 meeting, centered around a $2.8 million entry in the city’s cash account ledger which city officials said needed to be shifted into a project account for auditing purposes.

But Monday’s discussion, to the apparent frustration of Mayor Michael Passero and Finance Director David McBride, quickly veered into how exactly the money would be spent, a segue Passero anticipated earlier in the evening.

“Since it’s the elephant in the room tonight, and I’m not sure why, but there isn’t anyways a snake under every rock,” Passero said, adding that details about the grant were not relevant to the night’s discussion, which was only about shifting the funding to the proper account. “Every step of the way beyond this, the contracts will have to come back to the council.”

Shoring up the city’s fishing industry

In 2018, the Deepwater Wind firm – later purchased by the Danish wind company Ørsted and renamed Revolution Wind – solicited the city’s support for an offshore wind project off Martha’s Vineyard. In exchange for using a portion of the as-yet-redeveloped State Pier, Deepwater agreed to donate $3 million to help shore up support with the local fishing industry.

That money was only formally turned over to the city in June 2023 and a portion was used to fund a 2020 study of three city-owned piers: the Amistad, Stone and “elbow” piers, the latter a ramshackle dock jutting out from Fort Trumbull and located a few feet from the busy Stone pier.

The pier, used by the former Naval Underwater System Center’s fire department before the city took control of the structure, has not had “10 cents spent on it” in decades, Passero said.

The city leases both the Stone and elbow pier to New London Seafood Distributors Inc., a private commercial fishing operation, for $2,700 a month, with $300 covering use of the elbow pier.

Study results were later presented to city, Connecticut Port Authority and Renaissance City Development Association officials, who opted to use the grant money to repair the elbow pier, RCDA Executive Director Peter Davis said in June during a tour of the site with several potential project bidders.

The work, outlined in a request for proposal, calls for the replacing of four elbow pier piles, 48 failed cross braces, 23 rubber strip fenders, steel cleats, ladders and light poles.

Davis on Tuesday said three companies submitted bids for the elbow pier work. He said the city is in contract negotiations with the highest-ranked bidder, the New London-based Mohawk Northeast maritime engineering company.

The pier work, weather permitting, could begin this year and is expected to take six months to complete.

Once the upgrade work is done, a decision would be made on whether to allow New London Seafood to keep leasing the structure, currently used for boats to tie up, or let someone else use it.

Passero asked the council “not to punish us too much” for negotiating a $3 million grant and noted members will have a chance to opine on the specific use of the funding when work contracts are received.

Councilors decry lack of information

Councilors John Satti and Jefferey Hart decried a dearth of timely information on exactly how the grant money would be spent and pushed to delay any decision on the matter. Satti said he hasn’t been privy to the results of the 2020 piers study.

“If that study says (the grant money) should be spent on the Stone pier or someplace other than the elbow pier, that’s very relative to this decision process,” Satti said.

Council President Efrain Dominguez Jr. sought to clarify the issue for his colleagues.

“We have close to $3 million and now we have to put it into an account and it’s going to be earmarked for the fishing industry,” he said. “When any contracts come up, the administration needs to come before we, the elected officials, and we look at the contracts and make a decision.”

McBride reiterated the narrow scope of the issue before the council.

“This is merely an accounting transaction and does not represent any approval for spending,” Finance Director David McBride told the council on Monday. “There is no money being expended. It’s that simple.”

A proposed amendment floated by Passero and taken up by Satti to strike any mention of using the money for the elbow pier from the agenda item failed. The main motion to shift the monies passed, with Satti and Hart voting against the measure.

The item, since it did not pass with a supermajority of five votes, will be the subject of a second reading at the Nov. 3 meeting and possibly a third reading later next month.

j.penney@theday.com