In his first public address to the MetroHartford Alliance, Gov. Ned Lamont said economic growth and further developing the state’s skilled workforce are key goals for his next four years.
”We don’t have Silicon Valley, we don’t have natural gas [deposits], but we’ve always had the best-trained workforce in the world,” Lamont told a crowd of several hundred business people at the Hartford Marriott downtown on Thursday morning, where he spoke and took questions for more than 30 minutes.
One promising sign that Connecticut is already desirable to employers, he said, is the recent arrival of Infosys, which has committed to hiring 1,000 tech employees who will be based out of the company’s new downtown Hartford hub at Goodwin Square. Lamont dropped a hint about further Infosys activity in the coming weeks.
”Infosys is going to be doubling their commitment to the Greater Hartford area, we’ll be announcing that sometime in the next few weeks,” he said.
It’s not clear exactly what that would entail. Lamont declined to share specifics in an interview after his speech, just outside of the hotel’s convention room.
“I think I’ll let them make the announcement, but they are very positive on the Hartford market, they’ve had great response from a lot of folks there in that room today,” he said.
An Infosys spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Selling tolls
In recent weeks, Lamont has pivoted in his campaign position on highway tolls, from a position that once supported truck-only tolling, to a broader tolling scheme that he said could raise upwards of $1 billion in new revenue a year, roughly 40 percent of it from out-of-state drivers.
In his speech, he reiterated that he doesn’t want to raise the gas tax and that it’s tough to sell more businesses on Connecticut with the existing gridlock on its roads, particularly in his home region of Fairfield County.
”I think everybody knows it’s a problem,” Lamont said.
He asked the business community for help selling the need to toll, which he views as the only way to raise enough money to make needed investments in roads and bridges.
“I need the help from the business community and I need the help from the labor community, as we try to get this over the finish line,” he said. “Because it’s pretty contentious, you know?
The rhetoric he said he’s been hearing at the Capitol amounts to “oh my god it’s another tax, it’s going to be wasted away, frittered by the politicians… . Over my dead body.’ ”
“I’m afraid that is a message I’m hearing in the legislature,” he said. “And I need people to help step up on this.”
Defense of DECD pick
Lamont also defended his Department of Economic and Community Development commissioner pick, David Lehman, a former Goldman Sachs partner who in 2010 testified before Congress’ Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission about his employer’s role in the housing crisis that spurred the 2008 recession.
This week, Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven) hedged on his confirmation vote for Lehman.
“He comes out of Goldman Sachs, so that has some people thinking, but let me tell you, he spent his life…[working with] municipal finance, opportunity zones, public-private partnerships, and he knows every business leader around this country,” Lamont said.
Since his inauguration in January, Lamont has overhauled the state’s economic development apparatus, of which Lehman would be a part.
The governor plans to merge DECD’s business recruitment efforts with the not-for-profit Connecticut Economic Resource Center, which will be co-chaired by former Webster Bank and PepsiCo CEOs Jim Smith and Indra Nooyi.
“This is just the type of team we need to get this state growing again,” he said.
