On Thursday I ran into Steve Farrelly, the owner of the road salt company kicked in the teeth by Democrats, when they gave management control of New London’s public State Pier to his competitor, which runs the competing private port of New Haven and the other principal road salt import business in Connecticut.

Farrelly was attending a press conference in New London by Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski, who was in town to rail against the corruption and tens of millions of dollars in cost overruns in the Connecticut Port Authority State Pier project run by Gov. New Lamont.

Farrelly is understandably still bitter that the politicians who run Connecticut essentially put him out of business, at least his importing of road salt by ship, and gave his competitors the makings for a monopoly, driving up costs for salt-buying municipalities and their taxpaying residents.

Farrelly, in our chat, curiously put some of the blame for the government ruining his business on his local congressman, U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, whom he said at first offered to help him, as the state shut down his livelihood, but then didn’t.

Courtney’s connection to the pier and his support of the cost-ballooning, corruption-tainted State Pier project, now the subject of multiple criminal investigations, may soon become a prominent part of the debate in the campaign for Courtney’s Second District seat.

Kevin Blacker, who has been a relentless volunteer public critic of the State Pier project, tells me has been negotiating with the Green Party to accept their solicitations to become a candidate in the race. They control a ballot line in the race.

In fact, Blacker, being the forthcoming and honest person I’ve always found him to be, shared with me an email exchange with Green Party officials in which it seems very likely that he will be offered and accept their nomination.

This marks me happy as a journalist, because I’m sure Blacker’s entry into the race will bring more public attention not just to the State Pier fiasco but to a range of issues that may otherwise have been lost in the lopsided contests we have become used to, as Republicans keep putting up unappealing candidates against the popular congressman.

I’m a pretty loyal Democrat. I’ve voted for Courtney in every single one of his winning races, starting with the squeaker in which he wrested the seat away from Republican Rob Simmons of Stonington by 91 votes.

I ran into Simmons in the grocery store not long after his defeat, and he kept repeating that number to me over and over, 91 votes, as if he couldn’t believe how close he came to keeping the seat.

Like so many others in the district, I’ve respected Courtney for all the bacon he has brought home to the district, robust submarine contracts running into the next millennium.

But, really, didn’t the government order all those submarines because we need them, not just because the congressman from eastern Connecticut said we do? And won’t they keep coming whoever is in the seat, for the sake of national security?

I’m looking forward to Blacker’s decidedly unpolitical style of campaigning. He told the Greens in the email he shared with me that he won’t accept any donations, not even any financial help from the party itself. He did suggest maybe he could paint his name on some leftover Green signs from old campaigns.

A farmer and landscaper from Noank, with a degree in soil science, Blacker told the Greens he will juggle his work schedule and campaign part time, hopefully organizing and attending community listening sessions in unlikely places.

He told the Greens his campaigning will have to be weather dependent, crimped by a hurricane if one arrives, for instance.

He told them he would consider using unpaid citizens to work as his campaign staff. He doesn’t have and won’t use social media. He has a flip phone with a five-second delay before he can listen to a message.

I have to say it would be pretty great to have a guy who rejects social media to win a Congressional seat.

I am quite sure I’ve never known anyone considering public office to be as committed to the public good, as respectful and loyal to eastern Connecticut history and traditions, as hardworking and as relentlessly honest and principled as Kevin Blacker.

Join me in urging him to join the race. Democracy around here will be all the better for it.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com