Less than three weeks after the state’s top utility regulator resigned, Republican state senators are asking whether some of her fellow employees should also resign.
Former utility board chairman Marissa Gillett resigned in part following controversies related to Freedom of Information Act requests for documents about her actions as the leader of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. Gillette had weathered intense controversy for months in clashes with utilities before finally resigning.
Now, six Republican senators are asking if two of her subordinates will also leave their jobs, along with an assistant attorney general who represented the agency.
“In light of the recent stories regarding public confessions of the intentional misleading of a Connecticut Superior Court judge, have the following individuals been asked to turn in their resignations?” the senators asked Gov. Ned Lamont and Attorney General William Tong in a letter. “PURA’s General Counsel and Legal Director Scott Muska, PURA’s Chief of Staff Theresa Govert, Assistant Attorney General Seth Hollander.”
Senate Republican leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield signed the letter, along with five colleagues, regarding the state employees who were involved in various aspects of the inquiries into PURA in recent months.
The senators noted Lamont’s comments after a federal jury convicted former state deputy budget director Kosta Diamantis of 21 felony counts of bribery, extortion, conspiracy and lying to federal investigators in a scandal involving the school construction program that he oversaw for years.
“Governor Lamont, after the Diamantis corruption verdict on Oct. 22, you said, “Public service is a public trust.” We agree with you, Governor Lamont,” the senators wrote.
Lamont’s office declined to comment Tuesday, saying it was a personnel matter.
But Tong blasted the Republicans, saying that Hollander is an experienced attorney who performed well in defending PURA and should not be punished for the statements by his clients.
“It is highly inappropriate and unfair to hold Mr. Hollander responsible for the alleged actions of his clients, and to second guess his actions as a lawyer and an advocate and demand that he lose his job,” Tong wrote back to the senators.
“I offer a suggestion: instead of picking on an assistant attorney general for doing his job, I invite you to join me in taking on United Illuminating and Eversource to stop their unjustified demands that Connecticut ratepayers pay them and their shareholders millions upon millions of dollars more on top of rates that far exceed what Connecticut families can afford. Please join me in fighting back against our state’s utilities for using lawsuits and legal process to run one of their regulators out of town and for attacking and intimidating legislators who are also fighting against exorbitant rate hikes.”
Tong further told the senators that “if only you focused as much on supporting PURA’s work to deny the utilities’ unreasonable requests to increase rates ever higher and higher, as you do on the personalities and palace intrigue, perhaps Connecticut families could afford to keep their lights on. I cannot make it any clearer: Assistant Attorney General Hollander has my complete support. And he is not going anywhere.”
CT Attorney General William Tong delivered a fiery defense of his assistant attorney general who handles PURA energy cases after Republican senators questioned whether he would be resigning. Here, Tong speaks at the state Capitol on Nov. 16, 2024. (Aaron Flaum/ Hartford Courant)
PURA attorney against boss
At the same time, an in-house PURA attorney sent an email to two commissioners, saying he no longer feels he can work for the agency’s general counsel after the recent controversies.
Jeffrey R. Gaudiosi, who serves as the agency’s executive secretary and power procurement manager, told the commissioners that he can no longer report to Muska, who serves as general counsel. Instead, he wants to report directly to the commissioners, as he did before Gillett became the chairwoman in 2019, the email obtained by the Courant says.
“As seen in numerous docket filings and newspaper reports, Scott has engaged in behavior that is not up to the… standards of a state agency,” Gaudiosi alleged in the email obtained by The Courant. “He has withheld documents that are clearly responsive to requests under the Freedom of Information Act… I have spent thirteen and a half years as a PURA employee and feel that continuing to report to Scott could show to the outside that I condone his actions, which could not be further from the truth.”
Aside from being an attorney for the agency, Gaudiosi serves as the agency’s FOI liaison and handles all public records requests. Gaudiosi also is an attorney.
“Whenever PURA received a request from utility attorneys or involving commissioners, I was not allowed to fulfill my duties as liaison,” he wrote. “Scott handled those requests himself, and those requests are at the heart of the complaints about his behavior. These were the requests where documents were withheld…In some cases, I was asked by Scott, as my supervisor, to respond that PURA had no responsive documents, or that we provided any responsive documents we did have, even though I was not allowed to work on the request and validate those statements.”
To resolve the issue, Gaudiosi asked that either he or Muska should no longer handle FOIA requests.
“I have worked too hard in my career to have the stench of Scott Muska’s actions fall upon my reputation,” Gaudiosi wrote.
Muska did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Governor Ned Lamont’s office declined to comment on personnel matters facing the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. Here, Lamont speaks at a ceremony in late July. (Jessica Hill/Special to The Courant)
In the same manner as the request by the Republican senators, Lamont’s office declined comment on Gaudiosi’s letter since it is a personnel matter.
Taren O’Connor, PURA’s communications director, said, “PURA cannot offer comment on either the letter or email … as they are related to personnel matters that are being handled according to applicable HR procedures.”
Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com
