One reminder of how Gov. Ned Lamont ― no matter how he has tried ― has been unable to wring the stench of corruption out of his scandal-producing Connecticut Port Authority is the continuing voting by board member John Johnson, in a blatant violation of an edict from the Office of State Ethics.

Johnson, who owns a commercial warehouse adjacent to the port authority’s signature property, State Pier in New London, was told almost three years ago by the ethics office to stop voting on pier matters because of a clear potential conflict of interest, or at least enter in the record a written explanation of his votes related to the pier.

But Johnson still votes, with no explanation. Authority Chairman David Kooris, principal scandal apologist for the agency, accepts the votes without comment. And Gov. Lamont has refused to replace Johnson on the board, despite calls for him to do so from, among others, The Day’s Editorial Board.

I don’t know who has more blame at this nose thumbing at ethics laws ― Johnson, the governor, or the prickly port authority chairman, who gets a little snippy whenever any lawmakers complain in public over the cost overruns he has presided over.

Indeed, Lamont must despair at the real work needed to rebuild the port authority as a legitimate agency, cleaning up its sordid reputation of insider dealing, enormous ethics fines, criminal investigations and almost surely the biggest cost overruns ― a tripling of original estimates ― for any project ever conducted by the state.

His solution: Blow it up. Stick the ailing port authority inside the smooth-running Connecticut Airport Authority and hope the stench goes away.

Who needs a port authority anyway, Lamont appears to suggest, certainly not a watery state like Connecticut with major ports. After all, Lamont’s team has already closed the New London port to traditional cargo, to tilt at questionable windmills, to the benefit of political insiders who ran the port of New Haven.

No doubt the Lamont plan to blow up the port authority instead of fixing it would give some cover in the event criminal charges ever result from the wide-ranging subpoenas issued to the authority by the investigating feds.

On Friday, legislators will hear comments on Lamont’s run-and-duck plan for the port authority. Expect to hear from a lot of the governor’s party lackeys at the public hearing on his proposed legislation.

Before lawmakers take up the duck-and-cover port authority bill, I would suggest they revisit some of the greatest scandal hits from recent port authority history.

I would say, with an eye toward Johnson’s unabashed ignoring of an ethics opinion, that all is still not well there, and sweeping it under the rug is no solution.

Shouldn’t lawmakers at least determine whether or not the multiple federal criminal investigations into the port authority have concluded, before abolishing the agency?

Even casual readers of the port authority stories will remember when Scott Bates of Stonington, then the deputy secretary of the state with acknowledged gubernatorial ambitions, set out in 2016 to make a splash as founding chairman of the new quasi-public port authority.

Bates, who hired his friends and former associates and gave out prizes, like a $78,000 legal contract to former Democratic Congressman Toby Moffett (Moffett couldn’t explain to me why his Washington firm was qualified for the contract), became a central figure in the unfolding scandals, until Lamont finally asked him to resign.

Bates did indeed eventually resign from the board as Lamont requested, after finishing his term as chair, but then he lied about the reason for his resignation to lawmakers.

Kooris, the governor’s handpicked chairman, presented himself as the reformer of the agency, but he went on to negotiate the final terms of the controversial $535,000 bonus “success fee” paid, in addition to regular fees, to the company of former board member Henry Juan III.

Juan, of course, is a poster boy for port authority corruption, having paid a fine of $18,500 to settle a prosecution by the Office of State Ethics, the largest fine ever levied by the agency.

The ethics office said Juan used his insider board member knowledge to illegally lobby the port authority.

“Juan was using his access to CPA staff members under his authority and CPA board members to influence and/or attempt to influence the CPA selection process (that chose his company),” the ethics office said in the settlement agreement Juan signed.

Most alarming, ethics investigators said other board members and staff knew exactly what was going on.

So Chairman Bates knew what was going on. And current Chairman Kooris made the final deal giving Juan’s company its half-million-dollar bonus.

And the authority staff member fined by the ethics office for taking gifts from Juan’s company, Andrew Lavigne, has gone on to be appointed in the Lamont administration, in charge of enticing wind industry manufacturing here.

Why let a little ethics breach stand in the way of an appointment of a pal? And just because some pesky newspaper wants to see the record of who else applied for the job, fight that request with lawyers before the Freedom of Information Commission.

Just what the Lamont administration needs, someone who knows his way around the inside of an ethics investigation, as a target.

Does Lamont really have so much magic in his box that he now thinks he can wave a wand and make it all disappear?

Lawmakers ought to make the governor finally return the entire responsibility for Connecticut’s ports to the control of the state Department of Transportation, where it rested for decades and where it belongs, far from the reach of meddling, opportunistic private interests.

We’ll see soon enough how many have backbone and a moral compass.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com