At 69, Ned Lamont is not that much older than me.

In this age of senators and presidents aspiring to continue to hold office into their 80s and even 90s, a governor in his late 60s should seem alert and on his game, even youthful.

And yet I am still trying to understand how Lamont, who looked a little distracted at a news conference last week, could have possibly suggested that the $309 million remake of State Pier has contributed in any way to a boom in housing construction in New London.

With even the rosiest of projections, the pier-based wind turbine assembly facility ― the parts are all made in Europe ― is expected to only intermittently employ about 100 people a year, way fewer than a typical Walmart.

Does the governor really not understand that? Does he not realize that the reason developers are investing many millions of dollars to build new housing in New London is because of the submarine building boom?

Does he not understand that no one builds an apartment complex to accommodate the small number of employees at a new Walmart, one that isn’t even open all the time? Or was he trying to justify the hundreds of millions of public dollars he is spending on a project to accommodate private, money-making utilities?

The pier project is “one of several reasons New London has added more housing in the past few years than in the last 23 years combined,” Lamont boasted to reporters.

Wow. Could the governor really be that out of touch, to make such an absurd assertion into live microphones?

I’m going to say no. I am going to chalk it up to spin and exaggeration, to the point of lying.

After all, Lamont had just finished chairing a Bond Commission meeting in which he led approval of the latest $30 million increase in public spending on the pier project, despite promises made last year by Connecticut Port Authority Chairman David Kooris that the increase then was certainly the last.

Kooris came under heavy fire in the commission meeting from Republicans Rep. Holly Cheeseman of East Lyme and Sen. Henri Martin of Bristol, who suggested he would have fired Kooris as port authority chairman.

Kooris, in a response to the senator I would most kindly describe as condescending, noted that he is a volunteer at the authority, not a paid employee. His day job is running an events-planning agency in downtown Stamford.

I am surprised that Chairman Kooris, who has presided over what most certainly has been the largest cost overruns in state infrastructure history -- a project still under multiple criminal investigations -- could talk down to a senator raising some reasonable questions.

After all, the Connecticut Office of State Ethics just issued one of its largest fines ever to a former authority board member who was accused of lobbying on behalf of his employer for a rich authority contract, a deal that Kooris finally sealed with a yes vote and a controversial $500,000 success fee.

Never mind that Chairman Kooris continues to record the votes of board member John Johnson, who the ethics office has said should not be voting on pier projects because of a conflict.

Lamont made clear last week that Kooris, the Stamford events manager, is his guy to run the troubled agency, as it keeps overspending and remains clouded by multiple criminal investigations.

He also said the project will make New London one of the most important deep-water ports in the Northeast. Sure, right behind the port of New York/New Jersey and its more than 50 container ship berths.

But this is the governor who wants you to believe this huge ethical and business morass is fueling a housing boom in New London.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com