Farmington police have arrested a Waterbury woman who is accused of leaving a friend’s dog in a car while she went to work on Memorial Day. 

Police said officers responded to Executive Drive in Farmington just before 7 a.m. Monday after they received a call about a pit bull that appeared to be in distress in a vehicle. 

The dog was wearing a muzzle, lying on his side and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth, according to police. 

Officers were able to unlock the doors and move the dog to a cooler environment. 

Police said the owner of the vehicle had been dog sitting for a friend and left the dog inside the vehicle with two windows cracked open while she was working for a few hours. 

Police identified the woman as 26-year-old Annabelle Gonzalez. She was arrested, charged with cruelty to animals and released on bond. 

Stephen Pelton’s EcoSmart Home Services in Berlin, Connecticut, expanded into installing rooftop solar panels about eight years ago, an outgrowth of work making houses more energy efficient. But now that the state is discontinuing one of its solar incentives, he is worried.

A change in the way that utility customers are compensated for the excess energy that they generate is pitting solar advocates against the utilities and drawing the state into a battle that has been playing out across the United States.

Advocates argue solar energy will become less financially attractive just as the state is aiming to use more renewable fuel not less. Utilities, worried about consumers buying less electricity from the electric grid, are trying to put a dent in the solar business, they say. In Connecticut, only 1.5% of the state's electricity comes from solar energy, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Utilities counter that new billing system will be fairer to all of their customers, an argument being made throughout the country. Without a change solar customers pay less of the cost of the electric grid’s upkeep, they say.

For Pelton, the company’s chief executive officer, the policy shift foreshadows fewer customers for solar installations. If the law takes effect later this year, the company would focus instead on energy efficiency and other home improvements, but EcoSmart Home Services would likely lose four or five people from its staff of about 30, he said.

“Unless the state comes up with a plan and puts something in place for the long term then we're going to have a problem with solar going back to a small niche market,” Pelton said.

Frequent and Longer Power Outages
Customers in Connecticut now sell their unused solar energy to the grid at the retail rate and are billed only for their net energy use, a practice called net metering. The state last year decided to phase out that system in favor of new rates, called tariffs, at which utilities would buy energy and renewable energy credits. Consumers would be offered two options: the “buy-all, sell-all” choice in which they would sell all of the solar power they generate at a rate set by state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and buy back what they need at the retail rate, and a second choice in which the utility would buy unused energy in a time period to be set by the authority.

Existing customers with solar panels would be grandfathered under the net metering compensation until 2039.

But now Connecticut is rethinking last year’s decision. A bill that would delay the change and require a study of the value of solar energy is being considered by the state’s General Assembly.

Clean energy advocates say that neither option will likely be as advantageous to solar customers as the current net metering and that the change will send the state in the wrong direction at a time when the country is grappling with how to respond to threats from climate change. The Fourth National Climate Assessment, a federal government report released last year, warns that unless significant action is taken to curb global warming, climate-related risks will continue to grow, damaging the environment, the economy and Americans’ health. As for the country’s energy system, extreme weather is expected to increasingly disrupt it with more frequent and longer lasting power outages, the report says.

Utility companies and their allies across the country counter that a new compensation system is needed to serve all customers equitably. Without the change, a “cost shift” takes place with those without solar panels paying a disproportionate share of maintaining wires, poles, transformers and other fixed costs associated with a grid, they say.

Utilities have been lobbying for changes that would lessen the economic benefits for residents or businesses to generate their own electricity through solar panels, said Sean Gallagher, the vice president of state affairs for the Solar Energy Industries Association.

“They’re not really sure how this is all going to shake out and so we see these proposals that sort of slow down the revolution that’s coming at them,” he said.

The Edison Energy Institute, an association representing all U.S. investor-owned companies, argues instead that net metering has outlived its purpose.

“The intent of the original net metering policy was to incentivize early adopters, not create huge subsidies from one group of customers to another,” it says in a 2016 statement on its website that it calls Straight Talk About Net Metering. “Now that the cost of solar systems has come down significantly, there is no need for continued large subsidies.”

The utilities have gotten help from the conservative non-profit, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has been funded in part by the billionaire activist brothers, Charles and David Koch. In 2014, it wrote model legislation on net metering for state policymakers to adopt — a service it offers successfully on a variety of conservative issues. From 2010 through 2018, bills based on its ready-made legislation were introduced nationwide nearly 2,900 times in all 50 states and the U.S. Congress, with more than 600 becoming law, an analysis by USA Today and the Arizona Republic found.

Changing Direction in Maine and Nevada
Thirty-eight states plus Washington, D.C., had net metering rules in place in 2017, according to the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center. Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, Michigan and Nevada are among the states that eliminated net metering, but Maine and Nevada reversed course and reinstated it, some Indiana lawmakers would like to do the same and Michigan this year substituted a payment scheme different from a utility-proposed one.

Maine’s Gov. Janet Mills said when she signed the new bill last month that the state had lagged behind other states in policies that advanced solar power. Maine ranked 40th nationwide in solar installation in 2018, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association.

Nevada returned to net metering in 2017, and last year saw a 32% increase in clean energy jobs. Its clean energy economy is now dominated by energy efficiency, solar and energy storage, according to a report by E2, a non-partisan business group that supports policies that are good for the environment and the economy.

“The number of solar jobs would have been even higher if the data was collected today, because it would more fully reflect demand increases spurred by the 2017 restoration of net metering,” the report said.

Clean energy advocates in Connecticut are urging officials to avoid mistakes made by other states. Nearly 40 environmental groups, solar companies and others wrote to Connecticut’s General Assembly’s Energy and Technology Committee in February asking it to pause the implementation of the new program, which it said would jeopardize the 2,100 solar jobs in Connecticut.

One organization that signed the letter was the Acadia Center, a non-profit organization focused on developing a clean energy economy. Amy McLean Calls, its Connecticut director and a senior policy advocate, notes that Vermont has installed four times more distributed solar — or rooftop solar — per person than Connecticut. Massachusetts has nearly two times more per person. 

“The higher deployment rates in nearby states indicate that Connecticut’s in-state solar industry could expand but it has to be supported by effective solar policies, which is why we’ve been working so hard to make sure that we don’t go backwards and end up killing our solar industry,” she said.

No one is arguing that the system should not be fair everyone, she said.

“But what we are saying is, it doesn’t exist right now, so we need to not kill it,” she said. “We need to ramp it up.”

However the state's consumer counsel, Elin Katz, whose job is to be a watchdog over the utility industry, favors a new approach.

"I feel like net metering is picking a big winner,” Katz told NBC Connecticut. “But the net metering is also benefiting the solar installers at a very high level, too. Why are we picking them over offshore wind or battery storage or energy efficiency? Let's do things in a competitive manner which is how we started to do things in this state and then we can get things at a much more reasonable level.”

Solar advocates challenge the idea that different clean energy technologies are competing against one another. All are needed for the world to move away from fossil fuels.  

Studies Back Solar Advocates
Connecticut’s largest utility, Eversource Energy, favors eliminating net metering though it would not oppose delaying the switch. The utilities also need more time to prepare for the change.

“We believe replacing net metering with a tariff-based system would be fairer to all of our customers,” a utility spokesman, Mitchell Gross, said in a statement. “A delay in the phase out will also mean additional time to develop a program that is more transparent than the process currently in place.”

But if utilities argue that the change is necessary for the equal treatment of customers, some studies do not back them.

One 2017 study, by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, concluded that for the vast majority of states and utilities, the effects of rooftop solar on retail electricity will likely remain negligible for the foreseeable future. At the time only Hawaii had utilities with solar penetration rates of 10% of electricity sales, it noted.

“Energy efficiency has had, and is likely to continue to have, a far greater impact on electricity sales than disturbed solar,” it said.

A review of a number of studies, conducted by the Brookings Institution in 2016, found that net metering frequently benefits all customers when all costs and benefits are accounted for, among them reduced capital investment costs, environmental compliance costs, emissions and and energy cost.

“Far from a net cost, net metering is in most cases a net benefit—for the utility and for non-solar rate-payers,” it says.

While these fights over the direction of solar energy have been taking place, climate change has become an urgent political issue, advocated in particular by younger people who are demanding candidates explain how they will curb greenhouse gases. Among Democratic presidential candidates, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke have presented plans to get the United States to a carbon-neutral economy. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has rolled back many of former President Barack Obama’s environmental policies.

California has taken the lead in the United States as far as future rooftop solar projects and as of next year, it will require all new houses to include solar panels. In 2017, California generated 15.6% of its energy from solar.

A solar industry update in May 2018 by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that Hawaii had residential systems on an estimated 31% of households living in single-family homes. In California that figure was 11%, while in Arizona it was 9%.

A New Utility Model
Across the world, solar and wind power are growing rapidly and are expected to become the dominant source of electricity, according to a report released last November by the International Energy Agency. The annual “World Energy Outlook” found that renewable energy could supply 40% of the world’s electricity by 2040, as the electricity sector goes through the most dramatic transformation since its creation more than a century ago. It will require grid investments, improved smart meters and battery storage technologies and new rules for how electricity markets work.

The traditional utility business model needs to be replaced by one that encourages more distributed generation such as that produced by rooftop solar, promotes less energy use and takes into account the costs of climate change, said Karl Rabago, the executive director of the Pace University Law School Energy and Climate Center in White Plains, New York. Utility companies could continue to maintain the wires and grid stability, but customers who are producing solar energy and using energy efficiently are just as effective in meeting demand and at a lower cost, he said.

“We have to confront the question of the fundamental utility architecture,” Rabago said. “Is it capable of embracing this stuff? And what we find is that it’s not very adept at doing that.”

In Connecticut, Pelton of EcoSmart Home Services says it will become harder to sell solar panels if net metering is discontinued. Federal income tax credits are already scheduled to drop and then expire over the next three years and adding solar energy systems will become less attractive to homeowners, he said.

"All of sudden that conversation at the kitchen table doesn't go so well," he said. "We would like to have a little stability."

Wethersfield police have charged a person with animal cruelty after finding that he or she was living in a van with 22 dogs and a parrot. 

Police said officers stopped a Ford transit van for a vehicular violation around 9:30 a.m. Monday and learned that the driver had been living in the vehicle for several months.

Officers saw several small dogs in the front passenger side of the vehicle, so they went inside and found garbage and animal waste, police said. 

Twenty two 22 dogs and a Macaw were taken from the vehicle and brought to shelters with help from Rocky Hill Police and animal control officers from the Newington Police Department. 

The animals are being evaluated and the driver was charged with animal cruelty.

As if local sports fans needed more to cheer about, Boston has been named the best city for hockey in the United States.

According to a study by WalletHub, Boston topped all other U.S. cities when it came to the hockey experience. The online finance site took into consideration stadium capacity, ticket prices and team performance, among other factors. 

In the study, Boston ranked third in the performance level of its NHL team, and also came in third in number of Stanley Cup wins, team franchise value and fan engagement. However, WalletHub reported that Boston was among the top three cities charging the most for an average NHL game ticket.

Although Bruins tickets can be expensive, minimum season ticket prices for NCAA games in Springfield and Worcester were among the cheapest.

Boston was the only New England city to be featured among the top 20 cities.

The findings come as the Bruins and St. Louis Blues face off in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1970. The Blues have yet to win a Stanley Cup, while Boston has won six times.

The Bruins beat the Blues 4-2 on Monday to take a 1-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final.

A juvenile is dead after an incident at Sound View Beach in Old Lyme on Monday. 

State police said officers from the Old Lyme Police Department responded to the beach just before 6 p.m. on Memorial Day after getting a report of a drowning victim and found a juvenile alert and conscious. 

LifeStar later transported the juvenile to Hartford Hospital and the child succumbed to injuries after being transported from the scene, state police said. 

No additional information was immediately available.

Police have arrested a school bus driver from Stratford who is accused of being in possession of child pornography.

Detectives at Stratford Police Department received a child pornography complaint from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in February.

According to police, detectives conducted an investigation and identified 76-year-old John Kenneth Stone, who is employed as a school bus driver with the Durham Bus Services.

Detectives executed a search warrant at Stone's home in Stratford and authorities said they seized a laptop computer.

A forensic analysis of the computer found a large number of what detectives said were images and videos of child pornography.

On Thursday, Stone was taken into custody and charged with possession of child pornography.

He posted a $250,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Friday.

A woman had to fight to keep a bear out of her car on Tuesday according to Animal Control in Narragansett, Rhode Island.

The woman was uninjured.

Photographs of the close encounter were posted on Narragansett, Rhode Island Animal Control’s Facebook Page.

The post included a warning: “Yes, it's ‘cool’, but it is a bear, a wild animal. If sighted please secure yourself as quickly as possible!”

Officials said that it was a black bear which can run up to 30 mph.

This is not the first bear encounter this year in Rhode Island. Bears have been sighted in Johnston, North Kingstown, and Smithfield.

Manchester police have arrested a woman and charged her with assault after responding to reports of a man being stabbed. 

Police responded to an apartment on Thompson Road Monday after the victim called 911 and said he’d been stabbed and they found him on Center Street, bleeding from his left wrist. 

The victim was transported to Hartford Hospital and officers found the suspect, 27-year-old Cynthia Jimenez-Pacheco, and took her into custody. 

Police said they received reports that the victim and Jimenez-Pacheco got into an altercation and she grabbed a knife. 

She was charged with assault in the first degree, carrying a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct and criminal mischief in the third degree.

Whole Foods Market in Bishops Corner in West Hartford is moving to a new location in Avon.

Whole Foods confirmed they are closing the Bishops Corner location and opening a new one at Avon Village Center.

Company officials said current employees will be able to transfer to the new store and they expect to add around 50 new jobs.

It was not immediately clear when the move would take place.

Whole Foods has another West Hartford location on Raymond Road in Blue Back Square.

There is a very unique house in Hartford that is not all that it seems - unless you take a closer look. NBC Connecticut's ongoing series 'Hidden In Plain Sight' reveals the story behind the Austin House on Scarborough Street.

A sprawling lawn leads up to what appears to be large white and gray home. It was built in the 1930s for A. Everett "Chick" Austin, Jr., and his wife, Helen. Mr. Austin served as director of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art from 1927 to 1944. According to the museum, Mr. Austin wanted his house to be modeled after a grand 16th century villa that he photographed near Venice, Italy.

Austin recreated the villa in Hartford's West End on a very different scale.

"Chick has a great quote. He said 'My house is like me, it's all facade'," said Brady Culp, who is the Richard Koopman Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

The dimensions of the home are quite remarkable. Though the front of the Austin House measures 86 feet, the home is a mere 18 feet deep. While it may appear to passerby that this is a mansion, an up-close view shows that the home is much smaller.

"The realistic picture is this really small dwelling house that is only one room wide and approximately four rooms long," said Culp. "He's employed a lot optical illusions to make spaces look much larger than they are."

Walking in the front door, visitors begin to get a sense of the true size of the structure..

"It's jewel-like on the interior and it's a surprise when you walk in the door," Culp said of the baroque-style, rooms with silk-covered walls and gilded and painted furniture. Upstairs are the bedrooms and a dressing room with an unexpected modern feel.

"It's his stage for life," Culp said of Austin. "It's the stage in which he played out his life with Helen and his two children."

Mr. Austin died in 1957. Helen Austin died in 1986. The Austin family donated the property and most of its furnishing to the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1985.

The Wadsworth Atheneum offers tours through the home.

"Once they're inside, there's this gasp and a 'wow' because it is so special and unique," said Culp.

Take our interactive 360-degree tour of the Austin House. Note that the video will only show in 360-degree view in certain browsers - Chrome, Firefox, MS Edge, and Opera are all compatible.

If you know of other spots in our state that are 'Hidden In Plain Sight', submit your ideas here or by messaging dan.corcoran@nbcuni.com.

Part of a Southbury plaza is closed after a car crashed into several pillars Tuesday.

It happened in front of DiPalma's Restaurant & Pizzeria in Union Square off South Main Street.

The roof can be seen sagging significantly and the restaurant is closed.

It was not clear if anyone was hurt.

No other details were immediately available.

It has been an extraordinarily dangerous climbing season on Mount Everest. Eleven people have died while attempting to successfully summit and descend from the world’s highest mountain.

While the tragic events have occurred over 7,000 miles away the news is resonating in Connecticut.

There is a large climbing community in the Hartford area including West Hartford’s Lhakpa Sherpa.

“For so many people it’s a mountain, very difficult,” says Sherpa, who is a native of Nepal.

Sherpa has summitted a Guinness World record nine times, the most of any female climbers. While she’s been very successful, she understands the risk.

"Everybody has big dreams to summit Mountain Everest," explains Sherpa. "They want to summit and people get sick and people die people don’t make it."

What has happened on Everest this year has caught Sherpa’s attention but she is not entirely surprised.

“The mountain is all day strong. All the time strong but we (are) weaker and I really respect the mountain Everest,” she says.

Glastonbury’s, Bill Driggs is an experienced climber who, although never summitting, has attempted Everest three times. He attributes some of this year’s problems to congestion and slow climbing conditions because of inexperienced climbers.

“When there’s inexperienced climbers on the one rope going up or down the mountain they’re holding everybody up,” Driggs explains. “When you’re holding everybody up your fingers are getting cold you toes are getting cold. You’re losing oxygen. Your body is dying.”

Above 26,000 feet is what’s known as the “Death Zone.” It’s there, where oxygen is critical and at a premium. Time lost here can be catastrophic.

“It’s just at an elevation where your body can’t exist,” says Driggs. “No matter who you are, if you spend too much time in the death zone, you’re not coming back down.”

Redding police are looking to identify a suspect caught on camera breaking into a vehicle.

Police said there were two incidents on Saturday around 4:30 p.m. One car was parked along an access trail to the reservoir on Newtown Turnpike near Glen Road. The suspect broke a rear window and stole a bag from the backseat.

A similar break-in occurred in Easton around Route 58 around the same time.

One victim had a camera running in the car and provided police with the footage. Anyone who recognizes the suspect pictured above is asked to contact police.

Some thunderstorms could move through parts of Connecticut on Tuesday evening.

NBC Connecticut's meteorologists are keeping an eye on severe weather to the west of the state. If storms make it into Connecticut, they are not expected to be severe, but there could be lightning, thunder, and gusty winds with some of the cells.

Rain fell for most of the afternoon on Tuesday, and was expected to continue to push east through the night.

Conditions will improve on Wednesday, with temperatures returning to the 70s for most of Connecticut. There is a chance of isolated showers Wednesday evening.

Track the rain and storms with our Interactive Radar.

Another New London Public Schools employee has been charged in connection with an ongoing investigation that began with allegations against an employee at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School.

Melissa Rodriguez, 35, a teacher at Bennie Dover, is charged with failure to report as a mandated reporter.

Under Connecticut law, school teachers are mandated reporters, meaning they are required to report any suspected abuse or neglect to the Department of Children and Families or law enforcement.

Police said her arrest is connected to an ongoing investigation into New London Public School employees. Capt. Brian Wright said that Rodriguez has resigned from her job.

The warrant is sealed and no other details were immediately released.

Two other Bennie Dover employees have been arrested as part of an ongoing investigation into New London Public School employees, police said.

The first arrest was 35-year-old Corriche Gaskin, 35, who worked at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School as a behavioral specialist. He was charged with multiple counts of risk of injury to a child, illegal possession of child pornography, second degree sexual assault and voyeurism with malice. He is next scheduled to appear in court on June 5. 

School district officials previously said four employees from New London Schools were placed on paid administrative leave related to the investigation into Gaskin.

On May 23, 25-year-old Jevon Elmore, of New London, was arrested and charged with sexual assault in the second degree. Police said the warrant is sealed and they have disclosed limited information on the allegations.

Police said Elmore was hired in the summer of 2018 as a paraprofessional and has worked at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School and the high school. Elmore’s case was scheduled for a hearing Tuesday.

Investigators have not said how the three cases are connected.

NBC Connecticut has reached out to New London Public Schools for comment.

The investigation is ongoing.

Anyone with information is asked to call the New London Police Department’s Detective Bureau at 860-447-1481 or submit anonymous information through the New London Tips 411 system by texting NLPDTip plus the information to Tip411 (847411).

Fifty-two kids in the U.S. died in 2018 after they were left in hot cars, including kids from Connecticut, a staggering statistic to serve as a reminder as we near summertime.

When the temperature climbs, so does the danger for little ones left in car.

Some parents leave their purses or even one of their shoes in the backseat as a reminder.

Now, some new cars are using sensor technology to try to prevent that from happening.

There is also an effort to change federal laws to protect kids.

The “HOT CARS Act” was reintroduced this session by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut). It would require makers of automobiles to include a rear seat reminder.

“Anything to keep them safe. People are busy nowadays. I don’t think they should be too busy for their kids, but anything that can help,” said Maureen Ziemba of Stafford.

The grandmother of five thinks you can never be too careful.

“I stayed home with the kids, so I don’t think I had that extra pressure of dropping them off at daycare, you know, so I think people are so busy. Shouldn’t be too busy for their kids, but things happen.”

While police we spoke to support the potential legislation, they hope people use common sense in the warm weather and beyond.

“Last year we had a child rescued from a hot car, two alert women saw a child in this situation,” said Vernon Police Department Lt. William Meier

Owners of local car dealerships say they are all for the mandated technology and they say manufacturers are on board too.

“Most of the vehicles that are out there, They are pushing this as well,” said Jim Fleming, president of the Connecticut Automotive Retailers Association.

The McLeans from Vernon know life gets busy, especially with a toddler.

They have made checking the back seat a habit so they’ll always remember to get their son out of the car.

“Even when he’s not with me, I’ll go around the car and go, ‘Oh wait. He’s not with me right now,’” said Matt McLean.

While the bill works its way through Congress, it’s worth getting into a routine now.

There are apps like WAZE that have options to remind you to check behind you too.

Two reported bear attacks in Burlington in the last month have residents wondering what they should do. On Tuesday night the town held a forum and invited a Department of Energy and Environmental Protection wildlife biologist to answer questions.

Many at the forum told stories of their own bear encounters. Most said their encounters did not lead to conflict, but a few said their animals or pets had been killed.

"We woke up on a Sunday morning to five dead animals. It was pretty heartbreaking," said Melissa Haras.

Haras owns Grazin Goats Farm in Burlington, and last month a bear killed five of her goats, despite being fenced in and in a shelter overnight. Since then, she's added an electric fence and taken other precautions. She came out to the town forum to see what else can be done.

"Hopefully figure out ways to better protect my animals, myself, my kids. What's to stop it from breaking into my garage, my home, anything?" said Haras. "I want to protect myself and the bears. We have a lot of them, and it's becoming a problem."

"People should be concerned. Bears have killed people. It's not very frequent, very low probability, but it's a possibility," said DEEP Wildlife Biologist Paul Rego. "Taking the precautions that we recommend, removing food attractions, scaring bears when they can, supervising children when they're outdoors, are all things that can further reduce the chance of an already low-probability event."

DEEP says as the bear population increases in the state, the number of conflicts will continue to rise. In about a year there's been nearly 260 reported bear sightings in Burlington, the sixth most in the state.

"If people are seeing more bears near where they live, it's because they have a growing population, a population that has a high reproductive rate. And we have good habitat in the state," said Rego.

"The bear was behind the tree, the dog came out, she wanted to protect the cubs, she killed the dog," said Gary Duquette.

Duquette says last week he wasn't home when his wife went out into their yard with their two dachshunds. He says his wife looked before heading out and didn't see a bear. Their 14-year-old dachshund Rusty went out into the yard and a bear came out from behind a tree and killed Rusty. He says he called the police and asked them to try not to kill the bear, but by the time he got home, the bear was dead. Police say the bear acted aggressively toward an officer and the bear was euthanized. Duquette says no one realized the bear had three cubs up a nearby tree until it was too late. DEEP says the three cubs were taken to a rehabilitator.

"We're very cautious. We have no food, no bird feeders, no garbage," said Duquette.

DEEP says eliminating food attractants is an important step in reducing encounters with bears but that it won't prevent all of them.

"The number of conflicts grows right in step with the growing bear population, so I would predict as the bear population continues to grow, the number of conflicts will grow right in step with that. Education is important and can reduce some bear conflicts, but it also has very limited application," said Rego. "A lot of our towns, residents, are in wooded areas that are very good habitat, so even if people do take all the right measures to prevent conflict, there's still going to be bears mingling amongst populated areas."

Many people who spoke at Tuesday night's forum pushed for a regulated bear hunting season. DEEP says Connecticut is the only state in the northeast with an established bear population that doesn't have a hunting season.

But others at the forum disagreed with a hunting season and defended the bear behavior, saying people need to leave them alone and take the appropriate steps to keep them away.

Some at the forum suggested an ordinance against feeding wild animals.

For more do's and don'ts when it comes to bears, you can click here or here.

Voters in Windsor Locks will decide on Wednesday whether to approve a proposed tax deal for land where a developer plans to build a state-of-the-art sports campus.

Drive around town and you can’t miss the signs staking out support and opposition to what’s being called the All Sports Village.

“It’s just a great location,” Andy Borgia of JABS Sports Management, said.

Borgia explained to us his vision for farming land off Old County Road, right off Route 20 and near Interstate 91.

He wants to build a sports campus that would include outdoor fields, an indoor arena and dorms to house teams visiting from all across the country for events here.

“They estimated in year one it would generate $15 million in economic impact to the community and by year five, $27 million. So the economic impact is great,” Borgia said.

Some neighbors are calling a foul.

They worry how the development would affect the environment, nearby home values and their quality of life.

“Very concerned. Concerned about the traffic on Old Country Road. I’m concerned about the noise,” Valerie Mercey of Windsor Locks, said.

Supporters think it will be a boost.

It could create hundreds of jobs and the developer has promised to slew of benefits to the town including replacing the track at Windsor Locks High School.

“I love stuff that is going to enhance this town. And to me that’s going to be a big enhancement,” Tina Brough of Windsor Locks, said.

But to make the project work, the town says a special tax district needs to be created for the area.

It allows some of the taxes, usually up to 90%, to be rebated.

And that plan is up for debate now.

“I just want what’s best for the town and I think over 30 years this is not going to be best for the town,” Bob Tarascio of Windsor Locks, said.

“Most companies that come into towns and local areas they all look for tax incentives,” Borgia said.

It was actually opponents of the project who petitioned for the tax district idea to go to referendum on Wednesday.

Even if it’s given the OK, the project still has to go through several town reviews before it could go ahead.

New Canaan police are trying to locate a missing woman.

Police said 50-year-old Jennifer Dulos was last seen Friday in New Canaan driving a black 2017 Chevrolet Suburban.

Anyone who was in contact with Dulos or has information on her disappearance is asked to contact the New Canaan Police Tip Line at 203-594-3544.

No other information was immediately available.

Crews have ended a second day of searching for a 17-year-old boy who went missing while swimming at Candlewood Lake in New Milford on Memorial Day.

Officials said Tuesday they are considering this a recovery mission.

Emergency crews were called out for the possible drowning Monday after the teen was reported missing. Police said he was swimming with at least two friends when he became distressed, disappeared and went under the water as they were swimming from one island to another.

Boaters and good Samaritans immediately began searching the water in the area between Dike Point Park and Rock Island. Then police, rescue crews and divers took over until Monday night.

"The area where they were is an unattended swimming area. It's not exactly an area where it's monitored by the property owners so you know, it is kind of a swim at your own risk situation and we always encourage people to swim in locations where there are lifeguards available and other resources. And if they do get in trouble, you know, they have that immediately available to them," said New Milford Police Lt. Lawrence Ash.

Crews from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Newtown Underwater Search and Rescue and New Milford Rescue are all assisting with the search.

The divers are currently searching in what police said was murky water with depths of nine to 30 feet.

According to authorities, there is no foul play suspected and nothing appears suspicious.

The water is chilly, with temperatures around 60 degrees.

Police have not released the missing teen's name, however, his family has been notified.

The search will resume Wednesday morning.