A new dispute over another missing document has arisen in the increasingly contentious disagreement over regulatory policy between the state’s utilities and the Public Utility Regulatory Authority.
Eversource insists in a complaint filed with the state Freedom of Information Commission — and three witnesses agree — that PURA chair Marissa Gillett’s chief of staff wrote an internal email last year that limited the ability of two other, nominally co-equal authority commissioners to consult staff experts on regulatory questions.
Such a restriction would support the broader utility argument that Gillett has taken personal control of much of PURA’s regulatory apparatus by reducing the role of the other commissioners. The result, the utilities argue, has been unfair and legally suspect rate decisions.
Marissa Paslick Gillett, Chair of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority answers a question during the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee reappointment hearing on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
PURA flatly rejects the assertion and its general counsel, among others, has questioned the very existence of an email delivering such a message, saying exhaustive searches for an email have turned up empty. Even the two commissioners whose access to staff would have been restricted by the mail cannot produce it, PURA said. The authority said all commissioners have access to staff experts, while pointing out that coordination with supervisory personnel is necessary for operational efficiency.
“PURA is aware of the unsubstantiated allegation that commissioners have been denied access to staff or required Chair Gillett’s permission to access staff,” authority spokeswoman Taren O’Connor said.
“This allegation is patently false as all commissioners continue to be free to communicate with staff and are encouraged to do so in coordination with the staff’s supervisor or director to ensure the complex work in each docket remains coordinated. Given that PURA actively manages a case load of between 80 and 100 dockets at a time, coordination and communication with and between staff and commissioners is essential to avoid confusion and facilitate efficient operations.”
The new document dispute — another involving text messages deleted from Gillett’s cell phone is playing out in court — became public after Eversource complained to the Freedom on Information Commission that it believes there is a restriction on staff access, the email exists and PURA’s failure to produce it violates government public records law.
To support its claim, Eversource called PURA employee Sheena McElrath as a witness at a Freedom of Information hearing in August. McElrath is, or was, an assistant to Commissioner Michael Caron and recently retired Commissioner John Betkoski.
McElrath testified under oath that she has no doubt the email existed because she opened it, read it and discussed it with Caron. In interviews over recent weeks, Caron and Betkoski said they too recall the email.
“And are you certain that Commissioner Caron saw it?” Eversource lawyer Thomas Murphy asked McElrath at the FOI hearing.
“Yes,” she said.
“And you discussed it with Commissioner Caron?”
“Yes,” she replied.
When PURA general counsel Scott Muska followed McElrath as a witness, he took the opposite position.
“You’ve never seen any emails related to that topic, sir?,” Eversource lawyer James Healy asked Muska.
“No,” Muska replied. “And I can state emphatically that there’s never been a policy requiring Commissioner Betkoski or Commissioner Caron to seek permission from Chairman Gillett. So I would be surprised if there was an email to that extent.”
The one thing both sides agree on is that no one can find the disputed email. PURA says it probably never existed. McElrath has said it no longer exists. And Caron and Betkoski said they cannot find it.
Still, questions about the mystery email have become particularly pointed after Gillett’s belated admission that an automatic delete program on her personal cell phone erased another record that has become a flashpoint in her disagreement with the utilities: A text message exchange that critics believe suggests she collaborated on a news opinion column or op ed that excoriated the utility industry.
An image of the text exchange between PURA Chair Marissa Gillett and state Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, obtained through a Freedom of Information request. The portions blocked out are private numbers. Hartford Courant.
Gillett acknowledged in June, months after the utilities went to court in an unsuccessful effort to access to her text records, that the exchange had been deleted not long after it occurred in December 2024. Although the texts were erased from Gillett’s phone, the Courant obtained the exchange from the personal cellphone of the legislator with whom she was corresponding.
In the exchange, the legislator discusses an “op ed,” Gillett mentions a draft she has completed and both worry about being “FOIA’d.”
Gillett has said she was referring to draft legislation not an anti-utility opinion piece the legislator co-authored and published shortly after the exchange.. It was never her intention, she said, to circumvent public record laws.
Superior Court Judge Matthew Budzik, who is hearing the text message case, has scheduled a hearing later this month to examine why PURA initially told him it had no record of the exchange and then, months later, acknowledged its deletion.
The text messages and now the missing email have become hot spots in what has turned into a years-long fight between Gillett and the utility industry over regulatory policy and rates.
Gillett supporters claim the utilities are using their substantial political influence to undermine her because she is reshaping and modernizing regulatory policy in ways that will hold the utilities to account and better guard customer interests. The supporters argue that customers suffered under years of lax regulation before her appointment by Lamont. She has Lamont’s support, but narrowly survived a renomination hearing at the Legislature last winter.
The utilities contend Gillett effectively has taken unilateral control of rate making by improperly establishing herself as sole decider on important questions and pushing fellow commissioners out of the process by, among other things, restricting their access to staff experts. The utilities also argue that Gillett has made public statements that demonstrate bias against the industry.
Eversource, Avangrid and their gas and water subsidiaries have undergone a succession of credit downgrades following recent PURA recent rate decisions making it more difficult for them to borrow the hundred of millions of dollars they need to maintain their networks and pay for an expansion needed to meet an explosion in artificial intelligence.
United Illuminating said last week its second quarter return on equity, a measure of profitability, slipped to 3.13 percent. If PURA were to permit the utility to write-off deferred assets, as is the case under normal account principles, the company said ROE would be zero, meaning it has been spending everything it earns.
Gillett’s supporters, including Lamont, Attorney General William Tong and state Sen. Norm Needleman, a Democrat from Essex, argue the utilities’ problems are of their own making. They say the companies are suffering from unwise spending decisions, including investment in offshore wind.
Eversource laid out its grievance against PURA to the Freedom of Information Commission in a complaint that accuses the regulators of improperly withholding public records, not only the email restricting staff access, but policy directives that “demonstrate the scope and intentional nature of Chairman Gillett’s unlawful usurpation of decision-making authority in circumvention” of state law.
“Upon information and belief, PURA’s withholding of this documentation is knowing and intentional,’ the complaint says. “Eversource and other utilities have objected to actions and positions taken by PURA and Chairman Gillett that failed to adhere to PURA’s statutory obligation to discharge its quasi-judicial oversight of utilities in a fair and impartial manner.”
McElrath said during her sworn testimony that the email she opened and read for Caron arrived around June 2024. She said it required him to get advance approval from Gillett chief of staff Theresa Govert before seeking assistance from staff experts.
There has been concern about staff access at PURA in the months since McElrath said she received the email. House Republican leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford proposed legislation early this year that would guarantee staff access and he pursued the subject at a hearing on Gillett’s renomination in February.
“And to follow-up with that as well, one of our proposals we looked at is making sure that commissioners have access to staff,” Candlora said while questioning Gillett. “How does that process work? If a fellow commissioner wants to have access to staff, it’s been rumored that they need to go through you in order to get that access. Is that how the internal procedures work?”
Gillett denied limiting staff consultation. She said even Caron and Betkoski had assured her in writing that they were unaware of such a restriction.
“No, sir,” Gillett told Candelora. “In fact, the other commissioners themselves disputed that. We received an FOI from the utilities, I believe at the end of last year, and have publicly released that information, where they specifically sought documentation that they claimed had that procedure. We were not able to find any, and the other commissioners went so far as to provide an attestation in writing that they have never been told that and are not in possession of that material.”
Candelora said he has since tried without success to obtain copies of attestations by Caron and Betkoski. PURA did not respond to a request last week by the Courant for the attestations.
But PURA did provide copies of emails from Caron and Betkoski in which they said they did not have in their possession a copy of the disputed email directive requiring them to obtain advance approval from Gillett before approaching staff.
The Caron and Betkoski emails were part of PURA’s response in December to a request by Eversource for multiple records, including anything “indicating that Vice Chairman Betkoski and/or Commissioner Caron should obtain the permission of Chairman Gillett …in order to confer, make inquiries or obtain assistance from PURA personnel…”
Caron and Betkoski wrote, in identical replies to PURA’s general counsel, “I do not believe I have any documents for Category 3&4.” They copied McElrath, asking “Sheena, will you please double check and let those individuals on this email chain know what you find? ( If anything) Thank you!”
McElrath replied that she couldn’t find anything either.
In a statement responding to questions from the Courant, PURA spokeswoman O’Connor was critical of Caron, Betkoski and McElrath and questioned their credibility for saying recently that they recalled the disputed email after replying in December they didn’t believe they had, or could not find it.
“Importantly, there is no qualification expressed in any of the above-referenced written confirmations dated in December 2024 – no indication that Commissioner Caron, former Commissioner Betkoski, nor Ms. McElrath “recall discussing [an email]” or that an email “existed” but could not now be located,” O’Connor said.
“PURA is not able to comment as to why any individual involved might, eight months later, suddenly recall a specific email after being prompted by Eversource’s and Avangrid’s attorney, particularly after acknowledging that they could not locate such an email after multiple searches of their personal Outlook folders” O’Connor said. “Given the December 2024 emails authored by Commissioner Caron, former Commissioner Betkoski, and Sheena McElrath, the credibility of any statement contradicting those written confirmations would need to be assessed.”
Missing or disputed records are now parts of two utility lawsuits against PURA, which could be litigated for years. The Freedom of Information Commission has not indicated when it may rule on the Eversource complaint that PURA is withholding an email about staff access.
