GOP Gubernatorial Forum—

Five Contenders For Governor Agree State Needs To Protect, Preserve Jobs

By John Voket

Five aspiring candidates for Connecticut’s top elected office pitched their best ideas and got an chance to introduce themselves to about 60 local Republicans and guests who gathered at the Senior Center Wednesday night.

The second in a series of open forums being hosted by the Newtown Republican Town Committee (RTC) welcomed elected leaders from one of Connecticut’s bigger cities and smaller towns; a self-made businessman who also served as Ambassador to Ireland; a former state legislator who made a name for himself as a minority Republican US representative during the Reagan administration; and the leader of one of the state’s largest chambers of commerce.

On Wednesday, March 24, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, Chester’s First Selectman Tom Marsh, Ambassador Tom Foley, former congressman Larry DeNardis, and Oz Griebel of MetroAlliance Hartford all stepped into the spotlight, first to present themselves and their plans for the state, to respond to questions, and finally, to rub elbows over home baked pastries and coffee before heading home for the evening.

After brief introductions and establishment of the ground rules by event organizer and newly elected RTC Vice Chair Mitch Bolinsky, Mr Foley took the floor having won a five-way drawing to be the first speaker.

Admitting that he had never sought political office, he detailed his academic background in economics, and his professional résumé as a specialist in turning businesses from underperforming to successful.

His talent attracted the attention of the Bush II administration, which tapped him to ply his business talents in Iraq in 2003 working to improve state-owned businesses in that country, before being awarded the diplomatic appointment in Ireland.

Mr Foley said in meeting potential constituents across the state, the primary concerns were jobs, the economy, and how the state was going to work to improve both on behalf of its residents.

“State government is bloated and broke,” Mr Foley said, adding that $1 of every $8 a working family makes is returned to the state in taxes. “We need fresh faces and new attitudes in Hartford.”

In regard to improving the economy, Mr Foley said it was mostly about retaining and growing job opportunities. On order to do that, he said, Connecticut needs to protect and preserve its large and small employers.

“We need to stop the mandates that add costs and drive jobs out of Connecticut,” he said. And Mr Foley said he was ready to tackle the other major stumbling block to economic recovery — the cost of government.

“Next year we will need to reduce state spending by $1 billion,” he concluded. “That means I won’t be coming to Hartford with a stake in the status quo.”

The next speaker, Mayor Mark Boughton of Danbury, picked up where Mr Foley left off regarding state spending.

“Who’s the biggest single employer in the State of Connecticut?” Mayor Boughton asked, then answered: “The State of Connecticut.”

‘Rethink The Future’

Expanding Mr Foley’s more imminent projection, Mr Boughton said looking out over the next few years, current spending could put state taxpayers in front of a $5 billion operational deficit. And the state could no longer balance its budget on the backs of its largest and smallest employers.

“You know when the CFO of United Technologies says [do business] ‘anyplace but Connecticut,’ we’ve got a problem,” the mayor said.

Mr Boughton said his plan would be to centralize the handful of job and economic development agencies that promoted redundancies and created confusion. “We need one agency with one case worker who will manage one project from start to finish.”

The mayor told local Republicans that he grew up in Danbury, and after a stint in the US Army reserves he became a school teacher who was courted to run, and won a state legislative seat in 1998. In 2001 he returned to serve his home town, which had previously been controlled by Democratic leadership for more than three decades.

After winning the mayor’s seat by 134 votes, he went to work with a local council that numbered 17 Democrats and four Republicans, and was proud to have helped influence a complete “flip” to today’s makeup of 17 Republicans and four Democrats.

In closing, Mayor Boughton told the local GOP gathering that he was ready and willing to “rethink the future of state and local government relations.”

“I’m ready to help you take back your state,” he said, before acquiescing the floor to Mr DeNardis.

After his armed forces service in the Navy, Mr DeNardis said he graduated from a state Senate seat to freshman minority status in Congress, serving in the Reagan administration.

“Back then, the numbers in some respects were as daunting as we have today,” Mr DeNardis reminded the crowd. “Remember? Interest rates were up to 19 percent!”

Saying he was proud to be a “foot soldier for Ronald Reagan,” the former statesman got a rare opportunity as a freshman Republican to coauthor the nation’s first historic and sweeping Job Training Act. And after his subsequent defeat by then state Attorney General Joe Lieberman, Mr DeNardis went on to an appointment to the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Upon his retirement from politics he went on to academia, where he held a position as president of the University of New Haven. In that position, Mr DeNardis effected a transition of the former commuter campus to one of the region’s most popular residential universities, hosting students from 40 states and 65 nations upon his retirement five years ago.

Saying he was “motivated... no, compelled” to run for governor, Mr DeNardis said he could not recall a time when state government was more dysfunctional. He reminded local Republicans that “Connecticut’s bonded indebtedness is currently higher than the State of California,” and said among all the contenders that he had the political skills and the experience at negotiation that would be required to lead the state out of its economic mire.

Transportation Agendas

Business and so-called state transportation czar R. Nelson “Oz” Griebel took the floor next, telling the audience that Connecticut is not only losing the confidence of its businesses, but its residents, as well. He said residents who are ready for retirement, young people who are looking at becoming established, and those in the middle who are seeking new or better employment options are all facing having to abandon Connecticut because of the cost of living.

“Can we ever get our fiscal house in order by raising taxes and fees?” Mr Griebel asked. “We are the 47th or 48th oldest state [by population]. We need to bring back our young people.”

More than any other candidate in the local forum, Mr Griebel had three specific ideas he believes will help jumpstart Connecticut’s renaissance as a business center: restore a $250 million promised investment in transportation infrastructure spending; restore trans-Atlantic air service to and from the state’s Bradley Airport; and a continuing investment in the UConn Medical School to help position the state among the nation’s best in cutting-edge medical research.

He estimated that while those initiatives, if supported, would make a difference, a long-term recovery could take six to eight years, “a lot of work, and a lot of negotiations.”

Rounding out the program was Mr Marsh, who touted his community of Chester as having been recently chosen Connecticut’s best small town in a statewide magazine poll. He immediately took state Democrats to task over the apparent insistence that Connecticut’s economic problems were rooted in revenue shortfalls. Mr Marsh revealed that besides his part-time elected position as a small town municipal leader, he also represented 70 percent of the state’s employers, as a small business person himself.

“I own a janitorial service company,” Mr Marsh said. “It’s not glamorous, but we have between 15 and 20 employees.” In his elected capacity, the first selectman said he was pleased to have restrained Chester’s town budget growth, “which today is less than in 2005 when I was first elected.”

Mr Marsh said he wanted to bring accountability, one of the most important aspects of small town government’s success, to Hartford this November.

“In a small town like Chester, if you don’t like the fact that the town just bought a new dump truck, you walk down Main Street and look local governance right in the eye,” he said. “It keeps everybody honest.”

Mr Marsh advocated for the state’s next governor to use the constitutional power of the veto to exert control over legislators, and to use the “bully pulpit” to demand accountability of state elected officials in every corner of Connecticut.

Following the individual presentations, the candidates spent some time responding to questions, and expanding on points made during their introductory remarks.

While no mention was made of the absence of Lieutenant Governor Michael Fedele during the forum, Mr Bolinsky pledged in a release that “...the event [would] go on, with or without the lieutenant governor.” On April 28, the next local RTC forum will include all four declared GOP candidates for the US Senate seat being vacated by retiring Senator Chris Dodd, and a mid-April forum is being planned to introduce the 106th District state legislative contenders and regional probate judge candidates.