Connecticut

Fifty Years Have Passed, and Little Has Changed for Connecticut's Beaches

Published

2 years ago

March 13, 2024

Fifty Years Have Passed, and Little Has Changed for Connecticut's Beaches

To the Editor:

I grew up in Old Saybrook but spent my summers in Old Lyme. My grandfather had built a cold-water cottage at Old Lyme Shores in 1953 so, my summers and summer friends were formed around the private beach association of OLS. I knew it was a private beach. There were gates, and the private beaches of Old Colony and Edge Lea flanked us. And it did not seem odd to me that one could list all the OLS Irish families from the tops of the streets down to the sea wall. Until it did seem odd.

While researching material for a historical novel about the origins of Connecticut’s private beach associations, I discovered a father and son realty company had built these private beaches from old coastal farmland. Then they got the state legislature to grant the associations special charters to set their own zoning and taxes. It was an effective development strategy. By the time Governor John Dempsey warned in 1961, “The time is not far off when the last remaining open area on Connecticut’s shoreline is usurped for some private purpose,” it was already too late. For most of the state’s residents, Connecticut had become a state without an accessible, public coastline.

The charters also contained restrictions on cottage construction and other activities, including who could buy or rent an association cottage. In my novel, the protagonist—David Enders—asks the Old Lyme town clerk about the deed from a beach association he’s helping build. “Is this common language for properties around here? ‘…properties herein conveyed shall not be sold, leased, or rented in any form or manner directly or indirectly to any person or persons: (1) who are not of the Caucasian Race; (2) who are not acceptable either to the Grantor or to the Directors of the Beach Club Association…’” The clerk assures him it is, to which Enders replies, “…it seems like wording that might lead to all kinds of trouble down the road.” Surprisingly, it did not. Not for fifty years.

In the early 1970s, activist Ned Coll began busing Hartford kids to private beaches in Saybrook and Old Lyme to highlight the public’s lack of access to a once-open shoreline. For some of my family and neighbors, it was their Pearl Harbor. In response, OLS and other beaches were hardened with better fences and gates, festooned with No Trespassing and Private Property signs, and guarded by summertime busybodies checking the comings and goings of residents and suspect guests.

Now another fifty years have passed, and little has changed. There is the occasional court case about beach access — Leydon v. Town of Greenwich, for example. Local arguments about fence lines and the definition of “mean high tide” boundaries periodically erupt and fade away. What has changed is the character of the private beach associations.

Those communities of seasonal cottages for a few lucky middleclass families are now year-round, gated retirement communities for the grandchildren of the original cottage owners. Public water and sewers came to the associations, and those simple summer cottages were remodeled or razed to become expensive McMansions. Now the beach associations are defended year-round by retirees with time and money on their hands.

In my novel, a lawyer for the NAACP asks David Enders, “What do you think is going to happen to all this once-open coastline?” Enders reluctantly admits, “I guess some people will enjoy the beach and some won’t. Just like always.”

Edward McSweegan is a writer in Rhode Island where most beaches are public.

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Connecticut

State police investigating suspicious incident in Burlington

Published

3 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

State police investigating suspicious incident in Burlington

BURLINGTON, Conn. (WFSB) – Connecticut State Police are investigating a suspicious incident at a residence on Case Road in Burlington.

Multiple state troopers and police vehicles were seen at the home conducting an investigation. A viewer reported seeing nine police cars and numerous troopers at the scene.

State police said there is no threat to the public at this time. The investigation is ongoing.

No additional details about the nature of the suspicious incident have been released.

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Connecticut

Ecuadorian national with manslaughter conviction sentenced for illegally reentering United States through Connecticut

Published

15 hours ago

January 8, 2026

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Ecuadorian national with manslaughter conviction sentenced for illegally reentering United States through Connecticut

NEW HAVEN, CT. (WFSB) – An Ecuadorian national with a manslaughter conviction was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison for illegally reentering the United States through Connecticut after being deported.

40-year-old Darwin Francisco Quituizaca-Duchitanga was sentenced and had used the aliases Darwin Duchitanga-Quituizaca and Juan Mendez-Gutierrez.

U.S. Border Patrol first encountered Quituizaca in December 2003, when he used the alias Juan Mendez-Gutierrez and claimed to be a Mexican citizen. He was issued a voluntary return to Mexico.

Connecticut State Police arrested him in March 2018 on charges related to a fatal crash on I-91 in North Haven in March 2017. He was using the alias Darwin Duchitanga-Quituizaca at the time.

ICE arrested him on an administrative warrant in Meriden in August 2018 while he was awaiting trial in his state case. An immigration judge ordered his removal to Ecuador in September 2018, but he was transferred to state custody to face pending charges.

Quituizaca was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in January 2019 and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

After his release, ICE arrested him again on an administrative warrant in Meriden in August 2023. He was removed to Ecuador the next month.

ICE arrested Quituizaca again on a warrant in Meriden on June 28th, 2025, after he illegally reentered the United States. He pleaded guilty to unlawful reentry on July 30th.

He has been detained since his arrest. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigated the case.

The case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat illegal immigration and transnational criminal organizations.

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Connecticut

Justice Department sues Connecticut and Arizona as part of effort to get voter data from the states

Published

1 day ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Justice Department sues Connecticut and Arizona as part of effort to get voter data from the states

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Officials in Connecticut and Arizona are defending their decision to refuse a request by the U.S. Justice Department for detailed voter information, after their states became the latest to face federal lawsuits over the issue.

“Pound sand,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes posted on X, saying the release of the voter records would violate state and federal law.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced this week it was suing Connecticut and Arizona for failing to comply with its requests, bringing to 23 the number of states the department has sued to obtain the data. It also has filed suit against the District of Columbia.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the department will “continue filing lawsuits to protect American elections,” saying accurate voter rolls are the ”foundation of election integrity.”

Secretaries of state and state attorneys general who have pushed back against the effort say it violates federal privacy law, which protects the sharing of individual data with the government, and would run afoul of their own state laws that restrict what voter information can be released publicly. Some of the data the Justice Department is seeking includes names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

Other requests included basic questions about the procedures states use to comply with federal voting laws, while some have been more state-specific. They have referenced perceived inconsistencies from a survey from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Most of the lawsuits target states led by Democrats, who have said they have been unable to get a firm answer about why the Justice Department wants the information and how it plans to use it. Last fall, 10 Democratic secretaries of state sent a letter to the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security expressing concern after DHS said it had received voter data and would enter it into a federal program used to verify citizenship status.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, said his state had tried to “work cooperatively” with the Justice Department to understand the basis for its request for voters’ personal information.

“Rather than communicating productively with us, they rushed to sue,” Tong said Tuesday, after the lawsuit was filed.

Connecticut, he said, “takes its obligations under federal laws very seriously.” He pledged to “vigorously defend the state against this meritless and deeply disappointing lawsuit.”

Two Republican state senators in Connecticut said they welcomed the federal lawsuit. They said a recent absentee ballot scandal in the state’s largest city, Bridgeport, had made the state a “national punchline.”

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