🔒Unaffiliated candidate Griebel seeks major role for private sector

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R. Nelson “Oz” Griebel spent 17 years leading Hartford's regional business chamber, so it's perhaps no surprise that his gubernatorial campaign's main focus is private-sector growth.

Griebel, the unaffiliated candidate on the ballot this November, said every decision he would make as governor would be filtered through the lens of a single question: Will it help the state add 200,000 private-sector jobs by 2028? That's the jobs-growth number he has set out to reach over the next decade.

“If we don't have job growth, the only thing we're going to get is more taxes and fees or higher rates, and that leads to outmigration,” said Griebel, a former Republican, banker, and CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance, in a wide-ranging interview.

Griebel's jobs target is an ambitious one. For context, the last time Connecticut has seen that level of job growth over a 10-year period was from 1981 to 1990, when the state added about 230,000 jobs right before the income tax was implemented. In the last 10 years, Connecticut added about 120,000 private-sector positions, but that only reclaimed jobs lost during the Great Recession.

Meantime, the labor department projects the state will add only about 111,000 jobs over the next 10 years.

“To me the number is realistic,” Griebel said of his target.

He envisions growth in advanced manufacturing, insurance, fintech, health care and tourism.

Griebel said a key tactic will be to restore confidence in the private sector, letting employers know they have “an advocate in the governor's office,” and that he will be the state's chief marketing officer.

He said tax hikes would be an “absolute last resort” to deal with the state's budget crisis. He laments that tax rates are too high, and would seek to eliminate “nuisance taxes” like the $250 business entity tax. He also talks about lowering the personal income tax, though he's still evaluating it. He also ruled out a hike to the sales tax, which he called regressive and a burden on businesses.

A bigger issue, he said, is employers' and residents' dissatisfaction with how tax dollars are being spent, with a large and increasing chunk allocated for pension, benefit and debt obligations.

A core part of Griebel's strategy is to involve business leaders more in state decision-making. He sees public-private partnerships as a cornerstone of his governing style, which means including executives on major strategy boards he plans to form to seek consensus on thorny issues like tolls and transportation funding, and potentially health care and energy. In addition, Griebel said he or running mate Monte Frank will chair those boards, showing members their work could actually lead to legislative changes.

“I think the most important thing we can do in the near term is demonstrate to current employers that we're serious about making change,” Griebel said.

While Griebel supports leveraging unused corporate tax credits to do big deals, like the one Gov. Dannel P. Malloy did to keep Pratt & Whitney headquartered in East Hartford, he said he would cut back on the governor's use of incentives and even seek to privatize the state's core economic agency, the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD).

Griebel said he would discontinue the First Five Plus program, which has been Malloy's marquee economic-development initiative. It offers forgivable loans and grants tied to job-creation targets and other investments.

“I would not move forward with it,” he said of First Five.

He also doesn't favor the Small Business Express program, which provides loans and grants to employers with fewer than 100 workers. Would he kill corporate lending entirely?

“You never say never because those are kind of foolish statements,” Griebel said.

As for DECD, he said he would seek to model it after Florida's comparable agency, give it a “sexier” name like “Grow Connecticut,” and have it be advised by a board of private-sector members.

“Who best would understand what an economic-development strategy should be than those who were involved in employing people, in investing in the plant and equipment and research?” he said.

Griebel's challenge

It's a basic fact in close elections in this country — and this one is pretty tight — that a third-party candidate could play spoiler, but Griebel certainly doesn't want to hear about it. He said he's in it to win it, even though he is a long-shot candidate.

Positioning himself as an alternative to Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski, he said his independent status means he's unbeholden to any political party — a practical, business-friendly voice who is willing to talk about where he stands on important issues.

“No other candidate has a better grasp of the issues,” a pinned tweet atop Griebel's campaign Twitter page read in mid-September. “No Politics. No Parties. Just Solutions.”

The area business community knows him well, but statewide he lacks name recognition, which could prove to be one of his biggest hurdles. He garnered just 4 percent support in a Quinnipiac Poll conducted in August, right before he collected enough voter signatures to secure a spot on the November ballot. He also doesn't have fundraising support from one of the two major political parties, which will make it harder for him to get his message across to voters. Instead, his campaign has been very active on a much lower-cost medium — social media. He's also fought to get on stage for debates and released his first TV ad Sept. 25.

Here's where Griebel said he stands on some other major issues:

Closing the deficit: There's a $4 billion-plus deficit projected for the next two fiscal years. No candidate has shared a comprehensive plan to deal with it. Griebel is no different, but he did say tax increases would be a last resort.

Griebel said he wants to focus on cutting costs by pursuing regionalization of municipal services; privatizing or semi-privatizing state functions and agencies including the Department of Motor Vehicles and DECD; selling state-owned buildings; and potentially pursuing commercial hemp growing.

It's likely he would use the state's rainy day fund to start to close the gap. He also suggested in a recent debate temporarily suspending contributions to state employee pensions with the hope of developing a plan that will balance the budget long term.

Tolls: Griebel wants to test electronic tolling on I-91's and I-84's HOV lanes.

A pilot program would allow the state show residents and businesses that “the world's not coming to an end,” he said, and also test out congestion pricing, in which tolls are higher during peak traffic hours. In the meantime, his envisioned strategy board would be working on a broader plan for the state's transportation infrastructure. 

Minimum wage: Griebel said he's reluctant to mandate another increase in the state's minimum wage, which stands at $10.10 per hour, because it may hurt his 200,000 jobs initiative.

Unions: Griebel wants to convince state worker unions to voluntarily return to the bargaining table to rework their latest deal, which was negotiated by Malloy and expires in 2027, with layoff protections in place until 2021.

“We need to make some changes going forward, both in the benefit packages and things like work rules that would allow us to privatize certain services,” he said.

Griebel said he's almost certain to face opposition and that any strong-arm tactics could have negative legal ramifications for the state.

Hartford debt bailout: Hartford flirted with bankruptcy last year before the legislature swooped in with a long-term debt bailout. Griebel called the deal “horrible” and “horrific.” He said it failed to address the city's exorbitant commercial mill rate (74.29), which is hampering growth.

So would he fight to halt the state's debt payments to the city in some way?

“I'd have to look at it,” he said.

Griebel is worried other cities in fiscal distress will be looking for similar deals from the state. Instead, as governor he said he would work with local officials to seek “grand bargains” in those cities.

That would include capping budget growth, privatizing services, selling off public office buildings, increasing residential tax rates, convincing big property owners to agree to keep their tax burden level for a period of years — even if the mill rate decreases — and coaxing tax-exempt property owners to make voluntary property tax payments.

Many of those things have been tried before with little success, but Griebel insists the conversation would change in Hartford if the commercial mill rate was coming down.

“Is it going to be hard? It's going to be hard as hell,” he said.

XL Center: The aging venue needs millions of dollars for a major renovation or rebuild, but Griebel said he would not support investing state money in the facility without strong support by private investors and stakeholders, as well as commitments from UConn's sports teams.

“To what end are you going to build a new venue? For what purpose?” he said he would ask a group of stakeholders, acknowledging there are many other entertainment venues now competing for business in the region and state.

Health care: Under Malloy, Connecticut has embraced the Affordable Care Act and pushed back against President Donald Trump's efforts to offer skimpier coverage, such as short-term health plans, that would skirt some of the ACA's rules. Does Griebel support that approach?

He said he would convene a group of industry stakeholders, like the Connecticut Health Council, to take a broader look at how health care works in the state. Connecticut has lots of healthcare brainpower, and should be a leader in cost containment and quality, he said.

Millstone: The nuclear plant recently bid for a long-term, state-sanctioned contract to sell its carbon-free power to utilities here. The potential contract has been opposed by environmental groups and others.

“Millstone, to me, is a big part of the future of the state, both in terms of an energy source and as a major employer and taxpayer,” Griebel said.

Natural gas and renewable energy: Connecticut continues to subsidize the expansion of natural gas heating, and officials have also pushed unsuccessfully for major expansions of pipeline capacity. Griebel said natural gas burns cleaner than oil, and wonders what sort of timeline is possible to transition in a bigger way to renewables.

“How much do you have to invest in the short term to provide natural gas resources while you're waiting for the investments in renewables to kick in, is a question,” he said. “I think trying to bet the ranch on natural gas by itself is not the right way to go.”

Giving Malloy credit: Griebel gives the outgoing governor “a lot of credit” for his “Second Chance Society” initiative, which aims to provide skills training to prisoners and a better chance at finding a job when they get out. He also thinks Malloy has been on target in pushing for more money for roads and bridges.

“He's been a strong advocate, not necessarily an effective advocate, but a strong advocate for transportation funding,” Griebel said.

That Malloy has been unable to generate as much revenue for transportation as he would have liked is as much the fault of the Republicans as it is of the governor, Griebel said.

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