Within the last few weeks, lawmakers, municipal officials, and advocates have all asked Gov. M. Jodi Rell to publicly release a strategic economic development plan for the state, but as of Thursday her office is still claiming she doesn’t have it.
Under a bill passed and signed into law in 2007, the Department of Economic and Community Development was supposed to submit a plan to the governor articulating a vision for Connecticut over the next five, 10, 15, and 20 years. The plan was expected to be submitted July 1 and the governor was supposed to approve or reject it by Sept. 1.
State Sen. Gary LeBeau, D-East Hartford, wrote Rell and DECD Commissioner Joan McDonald back on Aug. 21 inquiring about the status of the plan. As of today he has not received a response and said he is sending another letter because he believes Rell does have the plan.
“I was lead to believe it was completed,” LeBeau said Thursday. “I don’t know what the hold up is.”
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Concerned that the plan has yet to be made public and may already exist, [Heidi] Green [executive director of 1,000 Friends of Connecticut] said she sent this Freedom of Information request to both Rell and McDonald last Friday. Under Freedom of Information laws she should receive a response by the end of this week or at the latest Monday of next week depending on when the mailed letter was actually received.
Regardless of whether the plan exists or not, Green said it was supposed to be “a comprehensive plan on how we move the economy from where we are to where we want to be as a state.”
She said it would be “disconcerting” if the plan was going into effect without first being made public. In addition to promoting smart growth and determining where the state should be focusing its economic development efforts, Green said the completed plan could help the state obtain funds for high-speed rail and other targeted transit investments being discussed at the federal level.
LeBeau, who is also exploring a run for governor against Rell in 2010 and is chairman of the legislature’s Commerce Committee, said in a press release last Friday that, “We are in the midst of probably the worst economic crisis that Connecticut has seen in modern times, and it is imperative that any plan that will help position the state to emerge and thrive be vetted and implemented as soon as possible.”
The legislature directed that the plan must include a review and evaluation of Connecticut’s economy, including an analysis of its housing and labor markets and demographics; review factors that impede economic development; identify economic clusters that are growing or declining in the state; articulate a vision for Connecticut; establish clear and measurable goals for the state; and recommend how to achieve them.
On Tuesday Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, another of Rell’s possible challengers in 2010, also questioned the status of the plan.
“The Governor refused to take a position on the state budget, and now has apparently refused to take a position on an economic development and smart growth plan that could potentially help put Connecticut’s economy back on track,” Malloy said in a press release.
“This is a two-year plan that is supposed to guide our economic development and smart growth strategies; it’s a plan for which the state paid $500,000; and it’s a plan that technically, by default, is supposed to now be in place,” Malloy added. “Yet, in the face of all that, our Governor has no opinion on it.”
You would think that in the midst of our economic situation here in Danbury and across the state, that the governor would get a move on and let the pubic see her strategic economic development plan for the state?
Well Jodi...we're waiting!
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