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The tussle over explaining Connecticut’s high utility costs on monthly bills continues. Two Democratic legislators objected last month to the decision by the state’s public utility regulator, Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), to describe one of four categories of charges on consumer bills as “Public policy changes not imposed by PURA.”

State Senator Ryan Fazio (R-Greenwich) and state Representative William Buckbee (R-New Milford), ranking members on the legislature’s energy committee, have offered their support for the PURA description. Fazio and Buckbee’s Democratic colleagues requested PURA impose “investments to support reliability, emissions reductions, and affordability. Nor originated by PURA. Charge dependent on usage” on that contested fourth utility bill silo. Fazio and Buckbee dismiss that as “biased phrasing of the category that aims to persuade more than inform.”

“The label proposed by DEEP, ‘system benefits charges’, is a worse alternative than the one proposed by the legislators because it is not comprehensible to the average consumer,” the Republican duo wrote to Marissa Gillett, chairman of PURA.

“Your decision in last year’s docket deserves a lot of credit for adding transparency to consumers’ electric bill,” Fazio and Buckbee concluded. “There is no reason to change that decision, especially because it has the most fidelity the new public act that I co-authored. Consumers will appreciate your leadership on this matter.”

Published August 10, 2023.

Petitions for September’s municipal primaries are due by 4 p.m. in local registrar offices. Democrats supporting Eric Coleman and John Fonfara in Hartford were optimistic on Tuesday that each would qualify to challenge former lobbyist Arunan Arulampalam, the choice of Hartford’s Democratic town committee.

Democrats Liam Brennan, Shafiq Abdussabur and Tom Goldenberg are in the hunt to meet incumbent Justin Elicker in a primary. Elicker defeated incumbent Toni Harp in 2019–his second attempt to knock her off the Democratic ticket.

Republican Barry Cohen is expected to file enough signatures to take on party endorsed candidate Paige Weinstein for mayor of sorrowful West Haven. Cohen lost by 32 votes to Nancy Rossi two years ago. Cohen challenged the result and the handling of absentee ballots in a court action that failed. Rossi, who has brought insistent incompetence to the job, is not seeking re-election. Republican Steven Mullins is also running.

Democrats nominated state Representative Dorinda Borr for mayor. She’ll face council member Victor Borras in a primary. A former Democratic mayor, Ed O’Brien, formed an exploratory committee for mayor early in the year but endorsed Borr when she entered the race.

Published August 9, 2023.

Canton Republican Kevin Witkos ended 20 years in the state legislature when he did not seek re-election as a state senator from the far-flung 8th District last year. This year, the retired police officer, former restaurant and bar owner and Eversource program manager is the Republican nominee for first selectman of the Hartford outer suburb, according to the Valley Press.

Witkos served on Canton’s board of education before winning a stunning upset victory over seven term Democratic House of Representatives incumbent Jesse Stratton. She was mounting a credible challenge to incumbent speaker Moira Lyons when Witkos won the seat comprised of Avon and Canton. Witkos served three terms before winning the open 8th District seat.

Witkos will face Bob Namnoum, a retired Granby English teacher and athletic coach who worked for the Connecticut Education Association as a field director and lobbyist.

Democrat Robert Bessel announced is not seeking re-election.

Published August 7, 2023.

The MDC—again. The first agenda for the regional water and sewer authority’s August meeting included a significant item: “Consideration and potential, action re: drafting of new ordinance to provide the MDC the ability to expand the stormwater system capacity in Hartford specifically for future development projects through ad valorem.”

The item raises the prospect of tagging seven of the member towns with the cost of development in the eighth, Hartford. The ad valorem tax formula for sewer services requires West Hartford to pay a disproportionate share of costs. Agenda item 11 for Monday’s meeting would open a new front in the battle for fairness at the relentlessly political agency.

And then a change. A revised agenda for Monday’s meeting appeared on the MDC’s website. The ad valorem tax has disappeared. The stealth tax increase may be the subject of comment—-and the evasive discussions that are the hallmark of the agency’s meetings.

Item 11 on the revised agenda is ”Opportunity for general public comments.” The changing agenda and plans to burden other town’s with Hartford’s development costs may be discussed there. some participants may want to suggest actions on what plotters can do with their plans.

Published August 5, 2023.

The Connecticut Lottery Corporation made an extraordinary public admission of failure Wednesday. It issued a warning to customers not to trust its retail terminals when checking tickets. New technology, launched in May, has featured ticket readers providing inaccurate responses. Winning tickets are not always properly read by the expensive new equipment.

This is a significant blunder for the quasi-public agency that has a history of them. The CT Lottery wrote that it “is advising players that if they have any lottery tickets purchased since May 21, 2023 and believe the lottery terminal response was incorrect when checking if the ticket had won or not, to hold on to their ticket and contact the CT Lottery at (860) 713-2700 or CTLotterySecurity@ctlottery.org.”

The statement ignores the purpose of the terminals that read tickets after a drawing. Many customers rely on the terminals for an accurate reading of their tickets and do not check them themselves. They would be unlikely to detect a winning ticket read as a losing one. The terminals should be disabled from reading tickets if they are not accurate.

Governor Ned Lamont chose to ignore innovation when he agreed to give the state’s two federally recognized tribes and the Connecticut Lottery Corporation to run sports betting in the state. More than ever, this added responsibility looks far beyond the capability of the often-troubled CT Lottery.

Published August 3, 2023.

If past is prologue, Derby election officials are in for a rough year. Derby Republican Town Committee members nominated an unrepentant election denier and insurrectionist, their chair, Gino DiGiovanni, as their candidate for mayor. DiGiovanni is a member of the local of the Board of Alderman from the Second Ward.

NBC CT broke the story last October when it identified DiGiovanni in video of the January 6, 2021, insurrection in the nation’s Capitol. “Open source surveillance video indicated DiGiovanni entered the Upper West Terrace door of the Capitol around 2:38 p.m., shortly after people inside the Capitol walked out that door, and people held it open for others,” NBC CT’s Len Bestoff reported. The mob was at the Capitol to impose by violence Donald Trump’s false claims that he had won the 2020 presidential election.

Mayor Richard Dziekan skipped the town committee endorsement contest and will meet DiGiovanni in a September 12th primary. Dziekan needs the signatures of 5% of Derby’s 1,249 registered Republicans.

DiGiovanni has claimed he was swept into the Capitol by the mob he joined on that infamous day of violence. He would, wouldn’t he. DiGiovanni has not said if he heard the chants of “Kill Mike Pence” that rang through the air. DiGiovanni joined the riot as his wife was home in Derby undergoing chemotherapy.

The winner of the Republican primary will face  former Alderman Joseph DiMartino, who lost to Dziekan by 48 votes out of the 2,812 votes cast in 2021.

Published August 3, 2023.

Hunter Biden told Judge Maryellen Noreika during his short circuited guilty plea appearance on Wednesday that he is admitted to the practice of law in the District of Columbia and Connecticut. Biden has been suspended from practice in Connecticut since 2021, according to State of Connecticut Judicial Branch records, for repeated failure to pay a mandatory fee. He has not been reinstated.

Biden, according to Judicial Branch spokesperson Melissa Farley in a Friday morning statement, “is currently not in good standing due to Attorney Biden’s failure to register or comply with the Statewide Grievance Committee’s [Minimum Continuing Legal Education] requirement since 2018…and to pay the Client Security Fund fee for 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022….” No disciplinary action has been taken.

Robert Hunter Biden, a Yale Law School graduate, was admitted to practice in Connecticut in 1997. Like other lawyers admitted in the state, Biden is required to make an annual $75.00 payment to the Client Security Fund. The fund is “established by the rules of the Connecticut Superior Court to provide reimbursement to individuals who have lost money or property as a result of the dishonest conduct of an attorney practicing law in the State of Connecticut, in the course of the attorney-client relationship.”  

Unlike other Connecticut lawyer-related fees, the Client Security Fund fee is imposed on “each judge, judge trial referee, state referee, family support magistrate, family support referee and administrative law judge.” According to the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch website, “An attorney is not exempt from the fee because he or she practices out of state, or because he or she does not actively practice law. Only those attorneys who have retired, resigned, who have served on active duty in the armed forces of the United States for a period of more than six months during the calendar year, or who have been disbarred, are exempt from payment of the fee.”

The fee may be paid online. The Judicial Branch provides at least one email reminder to lawyers that the $75.00 fee is due each year on or before June 15th.

Biden, who has suffered from a widely known addiction to drugs, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to failing to pay $100,000 in taxes on $1.5 million of income in 2017 and 2018. The lawyer and businessman has become a notably successful artist in the last several years, commanding hundreds of thousands of dollars for his paintings, according to The New York Times.

Published July 28, 2023.

In September, Governor Ned Lamont criticized his Republican opponent, Bob Stefanowski, for doing business in Saudi Arabia. “I can see why somebody running for office would want to hide that from the public. Signing a deal with the Saudis right after the assassination of Khashoggi raises questions about judgment.” Stefanowski’s entanglement in the Desert Kingdom was first reported by Daily Ructions on the eve of the first debate of the campaign.

Readers may have seen raw screenshots on social media indicating that Oak HC/FT, the venture capital firm co-founded by Ann Huntress Lamont, the governor’s wife and most influential advisor, has become a partner of Sanabil Investments. Sanabil manages Saudi Arabia’s $600 billion Sovereign Wealth Fund. It made a $2 billion investment in Jared Kushner’s new Affinity Fund, created months after the end of the Trump administration. The Saudis know something about the power of money to influence others who worry nothing at all about their reputations.

Sanabil includes Oak HC/FT on its list of “our partners” in its portfolio. Asked about Sanibel’s investment in Oak HC/FT on Tuesday, Lamont spokesman Adam Joseph replied in a written statement Thursday, “The Governor became aware of Sanabil’s investment in Oak HC/FT last week. Annie Lamont is one of the most respected venture capitalists in the country. Oak HC/FT makes independent investment decisions. The Governor is not involved in the business, including in what investments to accept or make.”

Lamont, who has opinions on most things, declined to say what sort of judgment the investment revealed. Nor did he respond to other questions, including:

How much is the investment? How does this reflect on Oak HC/FT’s judgment? Is Governor Lamont concerned that the Sanabil investment will compromise his own independence? Is Governor Lamont uncomfortable with the prospect of his family profiting by doing business with a fund controlled by a government with an appalling record on human rights? As a former newspaper editor, does Governor Lamont feel a moral imperative to avoid all entanglements with the government that carried out the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the regime whose columns for The Washington Post enraged Saudi autocrat Mohammed bid Salman?

Anyone who pays attention to Connecticut politics knows that Mrs. Lamont is a spectacularly successful investment wizard. As a woman, she has been a trailblazer in a notably tough business. That the trail she chooses to follow leads to a financial partnership with a murderous regime that continues to imprison women for supporting dissidents seems to be of no consequence in her world. It is not getting better for Saudi Arabia’s bravest women. Saudi Arabia’s executions continue to alarm and appall much of the world. All that gold can blind one to the basic aspirations of a wealthy nation’s oppressed. Or to the pain of 9/11 families.

None of it matters. Money makes money and the money money makes makes more money. That is what counts. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but the Saudis must be confident that the firm Mrs. Lamont founded will make money for them–and for her.

President Barack Obama made an observation for the ages when he said of the rich, “I mean, I do think you’ve made enough money.” He was wrong. It is never enough.

I’ve seen the emails. Mrs. Lamont is her husband’s most influential advisor. He’s free to choose whose advice he seeks and acts upon. The most persuasive voice belongs to Saudi partner Ann Huntress Lamont.

Building a family fortune often brings its founder into lucrative alliances with disreputable people. A century ago, J.P. Morgan Bank financier Thomas Lamont (Governor Lamont’s great grandfather) was a fan of the fascist regime that brought misery and death to Italy 100 years ago. Thomas Lamont, according to historian Ron Chernow, was dictator Benito Mussolini’s accomplice in destroying Italian democracy. Thomas Lamont also had a dalliance with the Japanese government, assisting it in creating a pretext for its brutal invasion and occupation of Manchuria.

And now Saudi Arabia takes its place in the Lamont family tradition because it is never enough.

Published July 27, 2023.

It was not close. New Canaan Republicans have a tradition of high-turnout caucuses to nominate municipal offices. Tuesday’s festival of democracy saw 1,200 party members gather to dump incumbent First Selectman Kevin Moynihan in a contest without mercy.

Challenger Dionna Carlson won the party endorsement with 724 votes to Moynihan’s 266. A third candidate, Kimberly Norton received 217 votes. Carlson, a former chair of the Board of Education, announced her candidacy in May. Moynihan was seeking a fourth term.

Carlson’s margin of victory–with nearly 60% of the vote–indicates that Moynihan would struggle to convert his 22% of the vote into a September primary victory. A 24% turnout of party members at a July caucus is likely an accurate indication of a primary result.

New Canaan Democrats nominated Board of Education member Amy Murphy Carroll for the town’s top job.

New Canaan was one of Connecticut’s most reliably Republican towns until 2016. Hillary Clinton won the New York suburb that year. The Biden-Harris ticket took it by thousands of votes over Donald Trump in 2020. Last year, Governor Ned Lamont, a Democrat, received 500 more votes than Republican Bob Stefanowski. Lamont was so pleased by his New Canaan win that he made a curious reference to it in his inauguration address to the General Assembly in January. Governors have traditionally declined to recite election returns on a day reserved for looking ahead. That is the power of a tony Fairfield County town over a Greenwich Democrat.

Published July 26, 2023.

Friends, dark times have descended on lower Fairfield County. Former state Representative Gail Lavielle (R-Versailles) announced Thursday in a rare Facebook post that her move to New Canaan from Wilton has been marred by the discovery that her new town’s stately homes include no libraries.

The Texas native and dual American and French citizen decried having to put bookshelves up in her new house. “I am not very pleased by this,” Lavielle moans. Adding to her burdens, “The painters are STILL here, but that will soon be over.”

It gets worse, Lavielle and her husband Jean-Pierre own two houses, their new one in New Canaan and they one they left in Wilton. This is July, so property taxes are due on both homes. Such troubles.

The former public relations professional has taken the measure of her neighbors and found them wanting. That lack of libraries has driven Lavielle to an inescapable conclusion. “I seriously don’t think people here read.”

Not to be disputatious but this may be an ill-considered pronouncement by Lavielle. You would think a town that spends $25,000 a year per public school pupil and boasts a 98% graduation rate would boast some readers within its boundaries. The town library’s summer writing program for children must be a trial for the instructors explaining a sentence to the les miserables moppets. No Proust for them.

National treasure Fran Lebowitz is said to have long owned a home in New Canaan. She not only writes but also reads books. The social commentator has spoken at amusing length about the expense she bears to move her beloved books.

New Canaanites, wonderful discoveries are daily features at your local library. Here’s how a library was celebrated on Broadway. (Broadway is busy area on the West Side of Manhattan that is home to dozens of theaters where eight times a week productions of all sorts delight audiences.) Jane Karkowski explains in less that two minutes.

Won’t someone in the tony town invite Lavielle into their book club? She would no doubt be an unforgettable addition.

Published July 20, 2023.