In perusing some documents pertaining to Gov. Ned Lamont’s quarter billion boondoggle at State Pier, I came across a $50,000 bill from a Waterford plumber for a hookup for a temporary construction site bathroom.

It was alongside another for $12,000 for a “temporary” guard shack at the site.

The waste that is almost certainly built into the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent at State Pier, on behalf of profit-mongering utilities Eversource and Orsted, came to mind when I saw a story recently about the Stonington Board of Finance refusing a $100,000 request from Stonington Borough for public restrooms, permanent ones.

The Board of Finance turned down the request for funding from the town’s COVID-19 monies, without a vote, but said it might look at the ask again when it starts work on the new budget.

Gov. Ned Lamont has also given borough officials, who are humanely trying to offer some relief to borough visitors who need to use a restroom, a cold shoulder, they say.

The apparent no from Lamont for some bonding assistance seems especially cruel, given the rich governor’s pinkies-out upbringing in polite society, where, really, public bathrooms seem like a pretty straightforward, humane notion of public infrastructure.

It seems especially curmudgeonly of the governor to deny help for creating public restrooms in much-touristed Stonington Borough, given the way he is lavishly and recklessly spending borrowed money on the rich utilities, even for expensive, temporary bathrooms.

I was sorry to read that Borough Warden Jeff Callahan, who has organized fundraising efforts for the bathrooms, is not running for reelection and plans to hand off the project planning to a successor this spring. He’s certainly earned a break from public service.

Callahan told The Day the $100,000 denied by the town Board of Finance would have been added to $116,000 the borough has already raised toward the $400,000 project, including money pledged by two community groups.

The Borough applied for bonding from the state in the summer, but Callahan said last week he has not had an answer and it not optimistic about its chances of receiving it.

The Board of Finance, suggesting it couldn’t spend COVID-19 money on the project, adding to other federal money, but would look for other funding in the next town budget.

I hope town officials and voters hold them to that pledge.

The fight to plumb Mystic for public bathrooms took too many years to finish the job.

If Lamont won’t show that Connecticut is a civilized, welcoming state, with public restrooms in places it encourages people to visit, like Stonington Borough, at least Stonington can prove it is a civilized town.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com