A Call For Connecticut Port Authority Hearings

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If you believe in the ability of government to accomplish great good – think Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — then it’s incumbent on you, when you see government misbehaving, to hold it accountable.

To say that accountability has been lacking in the case of the Connecticut Port Authority is an understatement.

If you think you know why the quasi-public agency, with oversight over millions of dollars of public money, all but dissolved this past summer, you are mistaken.

Even David Kooris, the current acting chair of the port authority, by his own account has never once met with the authority’s finance committee.

For our part, we’ve had a chance to talk to almost every public official and corporate head directly connected to the pending wind energy deal… except former port authority officials. 

We’ve sat down and discussed the deal at length with top officials at Ørsted and Eversource.  We interviewed heads of Gateway and Enstructure. We discussed the deal over coffee with Kooris.  Mike Passero and Felix Reyes fielded questions, all on the record, for hours. Months ago we drove out to Noank and sat in Kevin Blacker’s living room. We’ve talked to port authority board members and staff. We’ve talked to various state legislators of both parties.

But without missing testimony from Scott Bates, Bonnie Reemsnyder, Evan Matthews, and Catherine Smith – we’ll never truly understand the pending wind energy deal, or what went wrong at the port authority.

For this reason we strongly urge the State Transportation Committee to issue subpoenas and hold hearings on the matter prior to an expected agreement at the end of October.

In calling for hearings we join the editorial board of The Day, State Senators Heather Somers (R-Groton) and Cathy Osten (D-Sprague), State Representatives Christine Conley (D-Groton) and Devin Carney (R-Old Lyme).

It’s time.