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Governor Ned Lamont will appoint Ronnell Higgins, former Chief of Police at Yale University as the state’s new Commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP). Higgins became associate vice president of public safety and community engagement at Yale last year.

The announcement Wednesday that Higgins will replace Commissioner James Rovella has been carefully timed to draw a line under more revelations about conduct in the ranks of the State Police.

Colonel Stavros Mellekas is also expected to be replaced.

The State Police has been a nettlesome problem for Lamont. Republican Bob Stefanowski had only one line in his 2018 rematch with Lamont that irked the Greenwich Democrat. It was troopers’ vote of no-confidence in Lamont. That sealed Rovella’s fate. An ongoing scandal over motor vehicle tickets continues to cause dismay within the administration. More unhappy surprises are expected to follow–and you won’t need your GPS to track them.

Published October 4, 2023.

For something completely differ, read and subscribe to my Substack newsletter, Now You Know–The Cultural Lives of Others. This week’s guest is Army Veteran and Digital Dunkirk leader Alex Plitsas.

Video of candidates and John Gomes supporters placing ballots in two Bridgeport absentee boxes provide a sample of the bewildering amount of evidence Superior Court Judge William Clark is likely to see in the litigation over the result of the September 12th Democratic primary for mayor.

The results are being challenged by Gomes, who claims incumbent Joseph Ganim’s 251-vote win was obtained through fraudulent absentee ballots. Members of Team Gomes are seen in a video compilation depositing ballots in two of the city’s four absentee ballot boxes.

Thousands of hours of video have been provided to the Gomes legal team. Thousands of absentee ballot applications, envelopes and ballots have also been turned over to the parties. Bridgeport police officials have objected to some disclosures ordered by Judge Clark. They claim they would interfere with an ongoing investigation.

Published October 3, 2023.

Read and subscribe to my new Substack newsletter, Now You Know–The Cultural Lives of Others. This week’s edition features Army veteran and Afghan Digital Dunkirk leader Alex Plitsas.

Avangrid, which aspires to become “the leading sustainable energy company in the United States,” has terminated its agreement to build wind power turbines in Long Island Sound. The announcement came from the Connecticut-based company Monday evening.

The company, with $41 billion in assets and operations in 24 states, wrote:

“One year ago, Avangrid was the first offshore wind developer in the United States to make public the unprecedented economic headwinds facing the industry including record inflation, supply chain disruptions, and sharp interest rate hikes, the aggregate impact of which rendered the Park City Wind project unfinanceable under its existing contracts.

“Since that time, Avangrid has been transparent and collaborative, working diligently with state and federal officials and stakeholders to find solutions to the economic challenges facing Park City Wind as we continued to advance the permitting and development of the project. After exploring all potential solutions to the financial challenges facing the project, and engaging in good-faith and productive discussions with Connecticut state officials regarding these challenges, it is clear the best path forward for Park City Wind is in the termination of the Power Purchase Agreements and a rebid of the project.

“Pursuant to the contracts, Avangrid and the Connecticut Electric Distribution Companies have agreed to terminate the PPAs which will allow all parties an opportunity to pursue an expedient path forward.”

The CT Mirror provided a primer on the Park City project and the state of wind power development generally last spring. Read it here.

Published October 3, 2023.

For something completely different, read my Substack newsletter, Now You Know–The Cultural Lives of Others. This week’s guest is Army veteran and Digital Dunkirk refugee leader Alex Plitsas.

Middletown’s distinctive brand of politics is in full view Monday evening. Some members of the Common Council continue to complain that Chief of Police Erik Costa has not met the city charter’s requirement that he live in Middletown—as Costa’s one year extension to meet the requirement expires this week.

Costa has rented an apartment, establishing his residency. The mewling continues among some council members. Their arguments require translation into Middletown-speak. the Common Council groans under the influence of retired members of the clubby local constabulary. Costa is an outside hire. That sets off alarms among the many Middletown insiders who like the chief to come from the ranks of the insider caucus.

Apartment dwellers are residents too. They enjoy all the rights invested in those who live in single family homes.

Former state budget director Melissa McCaw rented an apartment in Hartford when she was that city’s finance director and was required to be a city resident. Her husband and children did not move to Hartford with her. Middletown has not been home to an official as powerful as McCaw for years. She left the Lamont administration in early 2022 for a fresh start in East Hartford.

Before council members contort the plain meaning of in pursuit of their petty agenda they might ask each other, ”Are our spouses residents of Middletown?”

Published October 2, 2023.

Former Republican state Senator George Logan will launch his second bid for the 5th Congressional District on Monday, October 2nd. Logan teased the announcement Wednesday on Twitter.

If Republicans nominate Logan, the contest will be a rematch with third-term incumbent Democrat Jahana Hayes. Logan lost to Hayes in 2022 by a little under 2,000 votes. The former two-term state legislator moved from his Ansonia home in the 3rd Congressional District to a residence in Meriden, putting him in the 5th. Logan continues to own his home in Ansonia but has registered a German luxury car in Meriden.

Logan took a drubbing in the Farmington Valley, once a reliable source of Republican votes. Logan unfurled his colors as a supporter of Donald Trump when one of the twice-impeached former president’s prominent lickspittles, Representative Elise Stefanik, headlined a Greenwich fundraiser for him. Logan will travel to the heart of Q-Anon country Monday to make his announcement in Watertown—home to the state’s highest ranking openly Q-Anon supporter, state Senator Eric Berthel.

Logan is expected to devote himself full-time in this campaign sooner than he did in 2022. Continuing to work for Eversource subsidiary Aquarian far into the last campaign may have made a difference in the outcome of the election.

Republicans in and out of the district are waiting for ESPN broadcaster Sage Steele, of Avon, to decide if she will enter contest.

Published September 27, 2023.

For something completely different, read and subscribe to Now You Know—The Cultural Lives of Others. This week’s guest is acclaimed actress Maureen Anderman.

Superior Court Judge William Clark issued an order Monday stating that he “expects to schedule evidence to begin during the week of October 6, 2023, or as soon thereafter as practicable, and to continue daily until complete, subject to logistical adjustments as necessary and as approved by the court.”

Because Connecticut holds municipal primaries in mid-September, challenges to the result require parties and courts to engage in intense and timely reviews of a challenge for the November general election. Courts are reluctant to postpone election dates because doing so can reduce voter turnout.

Plaintiff John Gomes and his team will need to immerse itself in thousands of hours of video recordings and review thousands of absentee ballot applications, the ballots themselves and the envelopes they arrived in. It is tedious but essential work. The ballots themselves were separated from the other documents when they were counted on September 12th.

Gomes and Ganim are both on the ballot for the November 7th contest for mayor. Ganim would enjoy an advantage over Gomes if he is the Democratic nominee for mayor.

Published September 26, 2023.

For something completely different than the battle of Bridgeport ballots, read this week’s edition of Now You Know–The Cultural Lives of Others. This week’s guest is acclaimed actress Maureen Anderman, a happy Connecticut resident.

Senators Richard Blumenthal and Christopher Murphy each accepted generous contributions from the PAC of their indicted colleague, Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat. Blumenthal received $10,000, presumably by check, from New Millennium PAC for his 2022 re-election campaign, according to Opensecrets.com.

Murphy received $7,500 from his fellow Democrat’s PAC for his 2018 campaign for a second term.

Blumenthal, who has nurtured a reputation for rectitude, accepted the Menendez maximum contribution after Menendez escaped conviction for corruption when a federal jury deadlocked in 2017. The Senate Ethics Committee admonished Menendez in 2018 because he “knowingly and repeatedly accepted gifts of significant value from” a doctor he used his position to assist.

Menendez was represented before the committee by Marc Elias.

Neither Blumenthal nor Murphy have called on Menendez to resign after he and his wife were indicted for accepting bribes that included “cash, gold bars, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle and other items of value.”

In 2012, the Menendez PAC contributed $7,500 to Dan Roberti’s losing primary campaign in Connecticut’s Fifth Congressional District. Roberti was defeated by Elizabeth Esty. She went on to serve three terms in the House but ignoring a chilling case of harassment in her office caused her to abandon her bid for a fourth term in 2018.

The Menendez PAC also contributed $5,000 to Rep. John Larson in 2012, though he faced no serious opposition.

Blumenthal could have afforded to be more discriminating in soliciting and accepting contributions. Tribal loyalties cannot have blinded him to what Menendez is. But the instinct to grab every buck he can in an easy re-election campaign caused Blumenthal to abandon the standards he’s spent 40 years trying to convince the public he would always honor. For $10,000? Because he was worried Themis Klarides or Leora Levy might come within 10 points of him?

Blumenthal, Murphy and Larson might do the decent thing and engage in some contribution washing by divesting their never ending campaign committees of the amounts they received from Menendez but it won’t change the rules of the game to take whatever they can from whomever offers it.

Published September 25, 2023.

For something completely different, read and subscribe to Now You Know—The Cultural Lives of Others. This week’s guest is actress Maureen Anderman.

Defiant Bridgeport mayoral candidate John Gomes’s legal team will have an opportunity to examine under oath the city employee their client has claimed is the woman depositing absentee ballots in a dropbox in the early morning hours a week before the September 12th primary. A preliminary witness and exhibit list submitted Friday by Gomes lawyers William Bloss and Christopher Mattei includes Wanda Geter-Pataky and Bridgeport’s Democratic Registrar of Voters, Patricia Howard.

Gomes and his supporters have said they believe Geter-Pataky is the city employee seen depositing ballots in an absentee ballot drop box by the entrance to the Margaret E. Morton Government Center. One video released by the Gomes campaign appears to show Geter-Pataky directing an unidentified man to deposit absentee ballots in the same box.

Gomes’s challenge is expected to threaten Incumbent Democrat Joseph Ganim’s narrow September 12th primary win by showing with the videos and other evidence a pattern of conduct that has made an accurate count of absentee ballots impossible.

The rising temperature in the Ganim campaign is evident in Matt Caron’s Fox61 report on the dispute. A Ganim aide called police when Caron and his crew appeared in the mayor’s office and asked for an interview. Previously, Ganim, a poor loser and a worse winner, called Gomes and company “losers.”

Ganim is seeking a third four-year term after his first run as mayor was interrupted by a federal prison term for corruption.

Published September 22, 2023.

Judiciary Committee members meet today to congratulate Nora Dannehy, former federal prosecutor and former counsel to Governor Ned Lamont, on her nomination to the State Supreme Court by Lamont. After a public hearing, they will vote to advance Dannehy to the full legislature.

Members of the public submitted testimony to the committee. As of Wednesday morning, more than a dozen opposed Dannehy. They identified themselves as belonging to various groups, including Latinas for Trump, Keep the Promise, People Over Elites, Latino Justice, People’s Party Project and Say No to Anti-Trump Nominee. There’s also someone who described himself as “a concerned citizen.”

Lawyers Eugene Riccio and William Dow III submitted testimony in favor Dannehy’s nomination. Dow is a titan of the Connecticut defense bar. They say more than the enigmatic Dannehy is likely to reveal herself.

Four people comprise the list of members of the public who wish to offer oral testimony.

Committee members will have an opportunity to pose questions to Dannehy after members of the public speak. A nominee to the high court who has not previously served on the bench often has little written record revealing a philosophy of the law in theory and practice. Dannehy spent most of her career as a federal prosecutor, with stops at UTC (now Raytheon) and state attorney general’s office. How Dannehy advised the aeronautics manufacturer to do business in an authoritarian state like Saudi Arabia, for example, might provide a look at her views when acting in a role considerably different than a prosecutor.

What Dannehy sees as the limits on the growing surveillance state, if any, should also be of some interest to legislators. Must the constitutional right to confront one’s accuser give way to the camera? What is state’s obligation to fund local education under the State Constitution? Views matter. No nominee to the state’s highest court arrives as a blank slate.

Nine years ago the State Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penalty law in a 4-3 decision. The majority opinion set out a new standard of review, “contemporary standards of decency,” to reach its decision. Dannehy ought to be asked what she thinks that means. What are our “contemporary standards of decency”? And what are hers? Does she see areas of the law where they are not met?

There will likely be no questions like that. The deal has been done. Today will bring a festival of congratulations and none of the traditional probing. In return, the next opening on the State Appellate Court will go to a Superior Court judge who has been chosen. She will receive a similar reception to Dannehy’s.

In the meantime, shhhh.

Published September 20, 2023.

Sports broadcaster Sage Steele left ESPN in August, announcing, “I have decided to leave so I can exercise my first amendment rights more freely.” Republican leaders and donors in Washington and Connecticut hope the popular personality will fulfill that ambition by running for the House in the state’s competitive 5th CD, Daily Ructions has learned.

Steele would face three-term Democratic incumbent Jahana Hayes in the general election. Hayes eked across the finish line first last year in one of the nation’s closest House races, defeating former state Senate George Logan by 1,800 votes. Logan is reported to be contemplating a rematch with Hayes. A Steele candidacy would upend those plans.

Steele left Bristol-based ESPN two years after criticizing the corporation’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy. Steele complied with the requirement and called it sick on the “Uncut with Jay Cutler” podcast. Steele talked about her dispute with with ESPN on Fox News in August.

Steele was a guest last month at the Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee.

The broadcaster joined ESPN in 2006. She has spoken often of her conservative political views. A Steele-Hayes contest would draw national attention from activists, media and the donor class that drives many party decisions.

Steele has many choices. Having left ESPN but not begun a new career, the Avon resident would likely be able to devote herself to the congressional race full-time. That would give her a significant advantage over Logan.

Delegates from both parties in the district that runs from the northwest corner of the state to Meriden in central Connecticut will meet in May to endorse a candidate. The district includes all or part of 41 towns. The Cook Partisan Voting Index gives it a D +3 rating.

Published September 18, 2023.

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