Controversy continues to brew over Boy Scouts coffee stop

A continuing controversy over the annual Boy Scouts coffee stop on Labor Day weekend in Waterford hit a new bump in the road this month when the state Department of Transportation added - and then quickly rescinded - a costly new requirement.

Earlier this month, DOT transportation maintenance director Jeffrey J. Wilson said in a letter to local Boy Scouts leader Robin Greer of East Lyme that the 24-hour coffee stop at the Interstate 95 weigh stations would be required this year to provide reflective safety vests during the event.

"The high-visibility safety apparel shall be strong yellow-green in color and must be worn by participants within the Department's highway right-of-way," Wilson said in his letter, dated July 8.

Boy Scouts said the requirement would cost them up to $200, reducing the amount that could be contributed to local charities from donations made at the event. The Scouts, who netted $3,000 from donations last year, questioned why reflective gear would be required, considering the coffee stops are held well off the highway in very brightly lit weigh stations, both northbound and southbound, on I-95.

"This is absurd," said state Sen. Andrea Stillman, D-Waterford. "I'm very surprised to hear they're now making new requirements that are totally unnecessary."

"Is it possible that the DOT is trying to force the Boy Scouts to discontinue the Labor Day Weekend Coffee Stop by imposing unnecessary requirements?" Merton W. Ferguson of Niantic, who has organized the coffee stops for 26 out of the past 27 years, said in a July 16 letter to the agency.

The DOT forced a discontinuance of a 25-year tradition two years ago when it decided to disallow night-time operation of the coffee stops because of what the agency - and, later, the governor - said were safety concerns. Boy Scout leaders at the time said it didn't make sense to break down the free-coffee operation at night, when tired motorists most needed some caffeine, and complained that setting up the event several times during the weekend was too time-consuming.

The decision to end overnight operations of the coffee stop led to heated debate locally - with both the DOT and Gov. M. Jodi Rell facing widespread criticism. The controversy resulted in the General Assembly passing a law last year specifically allowing the local Boy Scouts to hold their coffee stop overnight during Labor Day weekend at the Waterford weigh stations.

Stillman who, along with state Rep. Ed Jutila, D-East Lyme, was a sponsor of the law, said she had hoped the bill - which she and other legislators found ridiculous to have to pass - would be the end of the standoff.

By the end of the day Monday, after receiving questions about the controversy from a reporter and local legislators, the DOT backed off the reflective-gear requirement, and then offered to provide the vests free of charge.

DOT spokesman Judd Everhart at first denied any controversy at all, saying the agency encourages but doesn't require groups to wear reflective gear. He called a report of the new DOT requirement inaccurate.

But, when he received a copy of the DOT's memo to local Boy Scouts, Everhart checked it out and said the reflective-gear requirement had been a mistake, quickly overturned at DOT headquarters after The Day started inquiring about it.

"This letter should not have been sent," Everhart said in an e-mail. "We are NOT requiring the Boy Scouts to wear reflective vests. However, we strongly encourage them to wear them and, in fact, we will give them 20 vests to wear during their event."

Jutila said he had been told the DOT letter was an innocent mistake, that "somebody goofed in drafting the letter."

l.howard@theday.com