New Haven Independent

With just a few weeks to go before the Nov. 7 election, Rell and DeStefano faced off one last time at the NBC 30 studios in West Hartford Wednesday evening.

This time, Rell came prepared. Though she often shied away from using her full two minutes to answer a question, she gave a more forceful performance than she did a week earlier against the New Haven mayor, whom she leads by 22 points in the latest statewide poll. DeStefano remained on the offensive, and stuck to a message of fighting for working families through universal health care and property tax reform.

The Mistake

Asked again what her biggest mistake as governor has been — a question she’d ducked in the first debate, spawning statewide criticism and this TV ad — Rell first quipped: “The worst mistake was answering the question the way I did last week.”

Then she gave a real answer: Failing to get the car tax repealed. “I didn’t explain it well enough, or lobby hard enough to the legislature to get that passed last year.” Rell said she’d try again next legislative session.

DeStefano denounced the car tax as benefiting a Greenwich resident with 21 cars, but not the average working family or senior citizens.

Energy Rates

DeStefano (pictured) brought up utility regulators’ delay in announcing what could be a 50 percent energy rate hike. His campaign has charged the regulators are withholding information about new rates until after Election Day to benefit Rell. Adding to the appearance of politics being at play, two of the five commissioners had donated to Rell’s campaign.

Apparently caving under pressure from her challenger and The New York Times’s weekend admonition, Rell issued a letter Tuesday seeking disclosure of energy bids.

During the debate Wednesday, Rell claimed she wasn’t accountable for the non-disclosure because the Department of Public Utility Control is an independent regulatory agency over which she doesn’t have authority.

“By law, you are prohibited from speaking with those commissioners about rate increases, about transmission, or about generation. It does not prevent us from talking to them about our displeasure with their rate increase.”

On Moody

NBC 30’s Joanne Nesti asked Rell about her chief of staff, M. Lisa Moody, who called 16 commissioners into the governor’s office to hand out invitations to a governor’s campaign event, after signing a memo that stated the practice was wrong.

Rell first said Moody’s two-week suspension without pay was appropriate because Moody didn’t solicit money, “she simply delivered tickets.”

“Why did you not fire her versus suspend her?” Nesti later pressed.

“What she did was to break my personal policy. It would obviously be totally different if the law had been broken or charged. But to break a policy, I believe that a two-week suspension without pay was the appropriate action,” said Rell.

Rell said she aimed to pass legislation that would “put the chief of staff under the same auspices as the commissioners.”

Responded DeStefano: If Rell wants to pass a law that would make Moody’s flub illegal, then the governor should’ve treated Moody’s actions accordingly.

DeStefano said Rell ducked accountability by not describing the “implicit message of coercion” in what Moody did. “The governor inherited and has continued a behavior in government” from her predecessor John Rowland, who resigned in 2004 on corruption charges, DeStefano argued.

Connecticut’s Mini-“Big Dig”

In the last debate, DeStefano criticized Rell for lack of oversight on reconstruction of Interstate 84 near Waterbury, where hundreds of drains were recently found to be faulty and the work must be redone. Rell didn’t address the question in the last debate.

Wednesday, NBC’s Tom Monahan asked her to explain how the debacle occurred.

Rell said she fired the project inspectors as soon as an independent audit showed the work had been inadequate. She acknowledged that the DOT knew in April that the work done by the bankrupt L.G. DeFelice company was inadequate, and that the Maguire Group Inc., hired to inspect the work, was not doing its job. At that point, the DOT hired an outside inspector.

Upon receiving the inspector’s report in August, said Rell, “When we found out what the problems were and the oversight that was lax, I called the DOT commissioner and insisted that they fire the MacGuire group immediately. ” Rell assured the public the project cost would be borne by bonding companies, not the taxpayer.

DeStefano noted the company that did the work, under investigation by the FBI, is now at work on Route 7.

Rell replied that the same company isn’t at work: The company’s president formed a new company after the first one went bankrupt. She acknowledged the switch gave her concern, but said the choice of replacement company isn’t up to the governor, it’s up to the bonding company.

Citing what his campaign called “another DOT oops moment,” DeStefano said new Virginia rail cars can’t make it all the way to Grand Central Station because they hang too low to the ground. Rell supporters acknowledged the cars don’t fit on New York-bound rails, but said the cars were never meant to — they were meant for the Shoreline East rails. That claim appears to be backed up by this government press release.

“I’m Leaving!”

After the debate, Rell, who has been avoiding unscripted public events while maintaining her comfortable lead and sweet, grandmotherly public image, didn’t stay to answer reporters’ questions. Asked how her performance was, she simply said, “Fine.”

Why wouldn’t she take questions from the press?

“I’m leaving,” she said softly, shrugging her shoulders as she walked out of the studio towards her waiting car.

Where was she going? another reporter asked.

“I have one more little thing I have to do.”

She stopped to pose for this picture first.

“Her schedule’s nuts,” explained campaign manager Rich Harris.