#MiddleburyCT #Solar #Tritec #Michaud #Bosco
By MARJORIE NEEDHAM
Part I of II – A reader tip led the newspaper to a tangle of business relationships among those involved in the solar panel farm project proposed to the town on March 18, 2024. Why bother going back to an event that happened more than a year ago? First, the information only recently came to the newspaper. Second, we believe readers have a right to know about relationships that were not disclosed to them during public meetings.
Part I examines the relationships among town officials and among town officials and outside firms. Part II will take a closer look at the whole Middlebury solar project process. Part II will be in print in the August 2025 issue. It will appear earlier online at bee-news.com.
On March 18, 2024, Paul Michaud of Michaud Law Group (MLG) introduced a solar project proposal to the Middlebury Board of Selectmen. It’s unclear how many people present that night already knew that Michaud and Middlebury Zoning Enforcement Officer Curtis Bosco had formed a solar energy company in 2021. Bosco was present at the March 18 meeting and offered helpful suggestions on what could be done so the project would meet the town’s requirements.
Michaud had agreed on January 4, 2023, to be Middlebury’s legal representative in its quest for a solar project. MLG’s primary town contact was to be Bosco.
The proposal Michaud introduced came from Tritec, the winning bidder of a request for proposals issued May 8, 2023. The California-based solar power company proposed to build ground mounted solar panels on land once intended to be a golf course for the Ridgewood subdivision.
Selectwoman Jennifer Mahr told the newspaper that, immediately after the March 18 meeting, she handed town attorney Robert Smith a printout of the LLC’s certificate of organization. It showed Michaud and Bosco had formed a “solar electric power generation” company, Solstice Energy LLC, more than two years earlier, on December 30, 2021. (It was active until Sept. 11, 2024).
Mahr said Smith told her he had known nothing of this connection. She then saw Smith showing the printout to First Selectman Edward B. St. John. The solar project dropped from sight within two days. On March 20, Michaud withdrew, stating MLG had chosen to terminate its relationship with the town because members of the board and the public expressed dissatisfaction with the project and didn’t believe it provided the town with sufficient benefits.
At the April 1, 2024, Board of Selectmen meeting, St. John updated the solar project by discussing its history and then read part of Michaud’s letter into the record. Selectwoman Mahr asked if everything was gone, and St. John said they (Michaud) backed out of everything and were not pursuing anything. Nothing more was said.
On June 23, 2025, we reminded attorney Smith about the solar presentation he heard at the March 18, 2024, selectmen meeting and asked him if it was true that someone had shown him proof that night that Bosco and Michaud had formed a company.
“I can’t remember,” he said. Then he went on to talk about Bosco, saying that Bosco had explained this and then saying, “Didn’t he recuse himself? Look in the minutes.”
We explained we weren’t asking about Bosco; we were asking if someone came up to him after the meeting with proof of Bosco and Michaud’s business connection. “No, no, I don’t remember that,” he said, and pointed out that was a long time ago.
On June 24, 2025, in a telephone conversation, Bosco said he and Michaud formed the company after he had begun a solar project on family land in Naugatuck. The LLC’s purpose would be to oversee the project. “It’s nobody else’s business what I do out of town,” Bosco said. He explained his expertise and experience brought him to offer his services to the town.
Asked about disclosing the business connections he had to Michaud and to Tritec as a result of the Naugatuck project, He said, “The Board of Selectmen were fully aware of this. Ralph Barra, the town attorney, Elaine Strobel and Ed St. John knew.” He then began cursing, using the “F’ word repeatedly as he stated he was done, he was going to resign from the committee that met on Tuesdays and he was sick of the committee chairman. Then he ended the phone call.
Shortly after that, he sent the newspaper a copy of his response to questions about conflict of interest sent to him by another reporter. In it, he said, “My business activities in another municipality are irrelevant to this matter and are not the concern of the general public.”
We contacted former selectman Ralph Barra and asked him what he knew about Michaud and Bosco’s business relationship. He said, “I sensed there was some connection between them, but I didn’t know what … If there were business dealings, I didn’t know about them.” He said Curt never told him anything, and he eventually learned about the business connection from another resident.
Former selectwoman Elaine Strobel said, “I did know Curt was putting in solar on his Naugatuck property, but I didn’t know who was putting it in. He might have said something (about the LLC) but I don’t recall.”
St. John has not responded to phone messages asking him to comment. Attorney Michaud responded to an email request, explaining he was traveling and would comment when he returned home.
Michaud and Bosco had two opportunities to publicly disclose their business relationship and their relationship with Tritec, the first on November 7, 2022, and the second on March 18, 2024. The meeting minutes show no disclosures. Should they have disclosed this information? Did their shared business affect how they handled the project?
During the March 2024 meeting this reporter asked Bosco, “Curt, what was the name of the company?” He said, “Tri” and then paused and looked towards Michaud, who supplied, “Tec.” Bosco then said, “Tritec.” Perhaps the name was unfamiliar to Bosco?
Public documents indicate otherwise. Both Michaud and Bosco had a relationship with Tritec. Michaud did not mention that he had served as Tritec’s attorney of record on more than one occasion. The closest he came to disclosing this relationship was when Bob Nerney asked at the March 18 meeting if there was a proprietary interest between MLG and the selected vendor. The minutes state Michaud said, “RFPs were received from several vendors, and one does happen to be a client of MLG.”
Because of the Naugatuck project, connections among Michaud, Tritec and Bosco stretch back at least to 2021. That’s when Bosco and his sister proposed building a .96 MW solar panel farm on land they own at 0 Bosco Drive in Naugatuck. In an agent authorization letter signed August 23, 2021, Bosco and his sister appointed Tritec Americas LLC to make application to Naugatuck land use agencies for approvals of the project. The project made its way through the approval process and was approved on February 16, 2022.
Then, on April 26, 2022, abutting neighbors Anthony and Inga Oren filed an appeal of the Zoning Commission decision, in part, they stated, because the commission “relied upon and was improperly influenced by misstatements and misrepresentations by the defendant applicant and others of various facts and of the applicable zoning regulations.” Their attorneys are Green and Gross of Bridgeport.
Edward Fitzpatrick of Naugatuck represents the Naugatuck Zoning Commission. A May 31, 2022, filing states Middlebury town attorney Dana D’Angelo represents Bosco and his sister as intervenors. She remains their attorney of record at press time with a remote status conference on the case scheduled for June 27, 2025.
Michaud represented Tritec in the Naugatuck project until Tritec was withdrawn on November 13, 2023, after signing an agreement with the Orens that involved a monetary payment and the statement t
For the Michaud, Bosco, Tritec situation, we look to the town employee handbook statement it is town policy that all interactions with “vendors, suppliers and other outside sources” meet established town and community standards of ethical behavior and “not create an actual conflict of interest, or the appearance of a conflict of interest.” It also states, “each employee is required to make prompt and full disclosure to their manager of any potential or actual situations which arise that create or may create a current or future conflict of interest.”
Readers thoughts on the information presented here are welcome. They can be emailed to mbisubmit@gmail.com or mailed to Middlebury Bee-Intelligencer, P.O. Box 10, Middlebury, CT 06762.
Part II will take a closer look at the process itself while still focusing on how the relationships among the parties may or may not amount to conflicts of interest and ethics violations, whether the public has the right to know about the relationships, what obligations attorneys have when they learn about such connections and what obligations first selectmen have. Read Part II in the August print edition and sooner on bee-news.com.
