Itai Vardi John Fonfara, a Connecticut state senator who’s reportedly a candidate for commissioner on the utility regulatory board, headed a delinquent electric supplier company that owes over $1.1 million to customers who are struggling to pay their electric bills. Staff at the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), alarmed by the company’s mismanagement, recommended its leadership “should not be permitted to engage with the electric supplier market or electric utility customers in any capacity in the future.”
Still, since that decision, Fonfara has started multiple new companies whose interests could be affected by decisions made by PURA. At least one of them is in the electric supply industry. Another is invested in building data centers, which often require large investments in electricity infrastructure.
CT Insider broke the news late last week of Fonfara’s role as the former CEO of Wattifi, the now-defunct electric supplier company. Fonfara’s other new businesses, and their potential to create conflicts of interest for the PURA, have not yet been reported publicly.
Fonfara reportedly a nominee to expanded PURA
Fonfara has been named as a potential PURA appointee as part of a reported deal between Governor Ned Lamont’s office and a number of Democratic lawmakers, whereby the latter reconfirmed PURA Chairperson Marissa Gillett’s appointment to another term at the agency’s helm, in exchange for expanding the commission to five members from the current three.
Gillett has been facing years of attacks and belligerent political campaigns by the state’s gas and electric utilities in response to some of her reforms, and to cutting the utilities’ requested rate hikes.
In one alleged instance, Avangrid’s CEO appeared to have attempted to influence Gillett by making a vague offer of future career opportunities.
Money Owed to Struggling Customers
In Connecticut’s restructured electric market, supply companies can compete to offer retail services to customers. In December 2023, PURA exacted a civil penalty against Wattifi, the competitive electric supplier that Fonfara led, for failing to pay the state’s two electric utilities over $57,000 for the costs of a bill redesign program. Since the penalty accrued daily fines of $5,000, it ballooned into a total of $1.17 million over the more than 220 days that elapsed between October 2023, Wattifi’s deadline to pay for the bill redesign, and when PURA finally revoked the company’s electric supplier license in late May 2024.
In PURA’s notice of violation it sent Wattifi, the agency determined that the company must pay 95% of the penalty to the nonprofit Operation Fuel. The money would then go toward providing financial relief to electric customers experiencing difficulties.
Wattifi did not pay the original assessment or penalty. A PURA spokesperson told CT Insider that Wattifi never formally disputed or responded to the assessment.
Connecticut’s two investor-owned utilities, Eversource and Avangrid, disconnected residential and commercial customers over 52,500 times for non-payment during the 8 months that Wattifi accrued the penalty, which would have provided relief to struggling customers. PURA’s Office of Education, Outreach, and Enforcement (EOE) noted that Wattifi “has left ratepayers to absorb its failure to abide by its licensing obligations.”
Fonfara told CT Insider he does not believe Wattifi should have been required to pay for the bill redesign since the company “did not participate” and “was not able to participate” in the new billing system because it charged hourly rates and the system was designed only for fixed rates. He added that because Wattifi was going out of business, it wouldn’t need a new billing system.
The company informed PURA in March 2023 of its intention to exit the electric supplier market, but did not formally dissolve as a business until September in the Secretary of State’s filings.
In April 2024, the PURA discovered that it could not withdraw the sum Wattifi owed for the bill redesign from the $250,000 bank security that Wattifi had on file with PURA, since the bank had cancelled it four years earlier due to lack of proper documentation by Wattifi. In response, PURA’s EOE noted alarmingly that it “has reason to believe that Wattifi no longer exists. All service list emails to members of Wattifi are returned as undeliverable.”
EOE added a dramatic recommendation: “Regardless of how the Authority chooses to dispose of Wattifi’s electric supplier license, EOE suggests that, based on Wattifi’s actions, the corporate leadership of Wattifi should not be permitted to engage with the electric supplier market or electric utility customers in any capacity in the future.”
On May 29, 2024, PURA revoked Wattifi’s electric supplier license due to “the Company’s failure to maintain financial and managerial capability, failure to maintain a security, failure to notify the Authority of the Company’s dissolution, and violations of law as documented in the Notice of Violation and Civil Penalty issued on December 7, 2023”
Fonfara’s Other Businesses
A review of Fonfara’s most recent statement of financial interest, filed with Connecticut’s Office of State Ethics, shows that Fonfara is involved in a number of other businesses that could pose potential conflicts of interest if he were appointed to PURA and maintained his role with them.
Shortly after the dissolution of Wattifi, Fonfara registered on 12/20/23 a company called My Supply Manager, LLC, which shares the same address as Wattifi’s at 30 Sebethe Dr., Cromwell, Connecticut. The state business registry classifies the company as operating under the category of “Regulation and Administration of Communications, Electric, Gas, and Other Utilities.” Fonfara is listed as Managing Member of the company.
The company’s website claims to “continuously monitor electricity supplier rates and switch your supplier whenever a better rate is available.” It includes an enrollment form for new customers.
Fonfara is also a Managing Member of WeSearch Energy, LLC, formed on 11/20/2023. The company is overdue for its annual business filing and the Energy and Policy Institute could not find a website affiliated with it.
Fonfara is associated with a number of other companies:
- He described himself as a “Member” of Servistar, which he labeled in his statement of financial interests as a “real estate” company. In May 2021, Servistar applied to the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development for approval of a project to build a number of data centers in Westfield, MA. The application listed Erik Bartone, Paul Corey, and John Fonfara as “equal members of the Applicant.” Corey is a former renewable energy lobbyist and an attorney. Bartone was Fonfara’s business partner in Wattifi.
As of Nov. 2024, Servistar’s data centers project is still moving forward.
- In a PURA filing from 2016, Fonfara’s CV lists him as a Director in DBS Energy, which shares the same address as Wattifi’s in Cromwell, Connecticut. In a separate filing, Wattifi stated that it is an “affiliated” company of DBS Energy, an “energy service company” which operates in the energy efficiency and solar space. As of the latest filing (2024) with the Secretary of State, DBS Energy is still an active company in the state.
- Fonfara is the owner of Capitol Sign LLC, which he described in his statement of financial interests as operating in the business of “construction broker/energy.”
Senator Fonfara did not respond to the Energy and Policy Institute’s request for comment.
