FILE - Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont looks into a teleprompter as he delivers the State of the State address at the State Capitol, Feb. 7, 2024, in Hartford, Conn.Lamont acknowledged Monday, April 29, 2024, he helped hire a landscaper that illegally chopped down more than 180 trees and thousands of bushes on a property behind his Greenwich home -- capping off days of questions about his level of involvement in the felling. HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut Gov.
“I think at the end of the day, I’m responsible and the is,” Lamont told reporters after appearing at an unrelated event at Bridgeport Hospital on Monday. “They hired a contractor to do the work, and I think the contractor went beyond the scope a little bit.” Lamont and the neighbors were issued a cease-and-desist order to stop cutting the trees in November after the sound of chainsaws was heard by a property manager for another undeveloped piece of land where part of the culling took place. The manager said the tree-cutting “went far beyond destruction of wetland vegetation,” according documents posted by the Greenwich Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency.
Jacobsen told the commission “the people involved knew they would never be allowed to do this, if they had applied for a permit, so they did it anyway.” He said there was a plywood path laid out for trucks and a wood chipper.