Connecticut’s future is so bright, Ned Lamont has to wear shades.
Just about six months into his first year in office, Gov. Ned Lamont donned a pair of sunglasses as he opened 20 minutes of remarks to the 55th annual meeting of the Greater Valley Chamber of Commerce Tuesday morning. The event drew some 200 attendees to Brownson Country Club in Shelton.
The shades (a favor provided by Newtown Savings Bank) were a prop as Lamont opened with a sunny anecdote about his visit last Thursday to Amazon’s new million-square-foot fulfillment center slated to open late next month on the site of the former Pratt & Whitney engine plant in North Haven. The facility, which features state-of-the-art robotics technology to process an average of one million orders daily, is expected to employ some 1,800 workers. Two decades ago P&W employed about 15,000 workers at the North Haven plant.
The opening of the Amazon facility, Lamont told his audience, is emblematic “of the transformation you see in this state.”
The supremely self-assured Lamont often speaks without notes — but he didn’t need them Tuesday as he touched on the three well-worn themes he offers business audiences: getting the state’s fiscal house in order; transportation improvements; and workforce development.
Lamont took substantial credit for the two-year, $43 billion budget passed at the close of the legislative session June 4. He said the new deal was crafted to confront the state’s “bipartisan fiscal train wreck” that he said dated back to the administration of Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell. The GOP minority in Hartford criticized the pact, with some $1.4 billion in new taxes, as its own new train wreck.
Lamont trod carefully on transportation, as his unresolved plan to introduce tolls (the governor now calls them the more benign-sounding “user fees”) to Connecticut highways remains wildly unpopular. “Nothing is more important for getting the Valley going than transportation” improvements, especially to I-95, Metro North and the Waterbury commuter rail line, according to Lamont.
With regard to workforce issues, Lamont said it was key for Connecticut “to maintain our pre-eminent position in advanced manufacturing” led by manufacturers such as Sikorsky Aircraft and Stanley Black & Decker, which in April unveiled a new business and research incubator in downtown Hartford. The goal, Lamont said, is to make Connecticut “the Silicon Valley of manufacturing. Our workforce and talent are the greatest competitive advantage we have.”
As Lamont closed his remarks, he was presented a parting gift from Terry Jones, sixth-generation chief executive of Jones Family Farm in Shelton. The gift was a basket of strawberries of a new variety known as Valley Sunset, Jones explained. “They’re big, they’re sweet and they have a big heart.”
Farmers like Jones have a saying: “Be good to the land, and the land will be good to you.” Similarly, “Be good to business,” Jones told the governor, “and business will be good to Connecticut.”
Contact Michael C. Bingham at mbingham@newhavenbiz.com
