The deal this month in which a former Connecticut Port Authority board member agreed to pay $18,500 to settle a prosecution of ethics laws was a powerful acknowledgment of how widespread and deep corruption has been at the agency.

It was also a reminder that the hundreds of millions of dollars in overruns on the still-unfinished State Pier remake in New London are building on a foundation created from all that corruption.

Gov. Ned Lamont has been doing his best to look away and to keep spending borrowed money on what’s becoming a colossal monument to state corruption, on a much grander scale than anything we saw in the days of convicted former Gov. John Rowland.

The settlement this month with former CPA Board member Henry Juan III was one of the largest ever issued by the Office of State Ethics.

Juan’s conduct, as described by the ethics investigators, was about as egregious and sleazy as you can imagine in the realm of public business.

While serving as a “volunteer” on the board of the port authority, Juan became a co-founder and part owner of a company that then went after a rich contract from the publicly-funded port authority.

He then used his insider board member knowledge and illegally lobbied the authority board, according to the ethics investigators.

“(Juan was) using his access to CPA staff members under his authority and CPA Board members, to influence and/or attempt to influence CPA selection process…” the office of ethics said in the settlement agreement, describing Juan’s involvement in the agency hiring his own company.

What is most alarming about this ―Juan signed the settlement agreement ― is that the agreement explains that CPA staff and other board members also knew exactly what was going on.

Former Board Chairman Scott Bates, a Democratic insider in state politics and former deputy secretary of the state, would have known that Juan was lobbying for the authority to hire his own company, the agreement says.

And then the board, including members who are, incredibly, still serving, agreed and voted on the deal to hire Juan’s company, knowing full well the conflict and the scope of the unethical dealings.

Wow.

And then it gets worse.

David Kooris, the current authority chairman who was named after his immediate predecessor had to resign for buying her daughter’s art work for office decorations, approved the final deal for paying Juan’s company a $535,000 “success” fee in addition to its regular bill.

The watchdog agency Connecticut State Contracting Standards Board has questioned the success fee as possibly illegal and it has been under investigation by the FBI and state attorney general.

Kooris, Lamont’s hand-picked chairman of the troubled port authority, not only presided over the questionable half-million dollar payment to a company co-founded by an authority board member, but has presided over hundreds of millions in cost overruns for a project under criminal investigation.

Yet Kooris still enjoys the governor’s good graces as chairman.

Lamont’s economic development commissioner recently hired Andrew Lavigne away from the corrupt port authority, at a six-figure salary, after he was cited by the Office of State Ethics for improperly taking gifts from Juan’s company.

Lamont apparently likes to reward corruption.

National Democrats like to blame Republicans for overlooking so many of Donald Trump’s misdeeds.

I blame Connecticut Democratic leadership ― including the entire Washington delegation ― and the party’s many mute state legislators for refusing to address the ongoing stench at the New London waterfront created and tolerated by Democratic insiders.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com