Smith Plans To Develop Start-ups, Recruit Millennials

By Scott Benjamin

NORWALK – Guy Smith says his vision of Connecticut features hundreds of start-up businesses in empty state buildings partially established through financing from public-private consortiums and an economic development program that recruits millennials from out of state.

“It doesn’t cost much to do a start-up,” said Smith, 68, of Greenwich, who announced earlier this month that he is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. “You can underpin it with the banks and you can underpin it again with a credit from the state and spread the risk.”

The Boston Globe reported in 2016 that Connecticut’s suburban geography, which once helped attract Boehringer Ingelheim to Ridgefield and UBS to Stamford, now plays second fiddle to the urban innovation hubs, such as the Route 128 Corridor near Boston, where mellennials can easily find high-paying jobs and public transportation.

In addition to developing start-ups, Smith said he supports continuing Gov. Dannel Malloy’s (D-Stamford) First Five/Next Five program, which has provided financial incentives to large employers – such as the Bridgewater Associates hedge fund in Westport and NBC Sports in Stamford - to remain in the state and expand their work force.

Smith said in speaking with voters the top issue is jobs in the only New England state that hasn’t recaptured all of the positions it lost during the 2008 recession.

“The governing class isn’t getting it done,” he said in an interview.

“I know how to bring people together to solve problems,” said Smith, a former senior executive with Diageo, the alcohol beverage company, in Norwalk and the Connecticut-based Americares non-profit disaster relief organization.

This is his first bid for public office, but he learned valuable lessons from his work as a special advisor to former President Bill Clinton during the 1998-1999 impeachment proceedings.

“He would talk to everyone, including his opponents,” Smith recalled. “During the impeachment, he had substantive meetings with the House managers [members of the House Judiciary Committee] that were seeking to remove him from office.”

“I’m strongly against [President Donald] Trump, but I would always be willing to speak with him,” said Smith. “I learned from Bill Clinton that you keep talking to the people who are against you.”

Smith complained that Connecticut is a giver state that only gets 80 cents in return from the tax money it pays to the federal government. Apparently, it is a chronic problem. Former Republican congressional candidate Mark Nielsen made that same argument in 2000 while he was making his second unsuccessful bid for the seat in the Fifth District.

Smith said the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development should devote more resources to securing more federal funds.

He said congressional earmarks are not necessarily bad, because sometimes that provides an avenue for a congressman from Connecticut to trade votes with a colleague from Idaho who otherwise might not have much interest in supporting a particular piece of legislation.

Smith said even if Malloy gets approval for his $100 billion, 30-year transportation package, which has been stalled since being developed in 2015 by an ad-hoc committee, the state will need to rely on additional federal assistance to repair and expand the road and bridge network.

Sources ranging from former U.S. Rep. Jim Maloney (D-5) of Danbury to former state Rep. David Scribner (R-107) of Brookfield, who was the ranking Republican House member on the General Assembly’s Transportation Committee, have said that federal funding usually pays for 80 percent of most major projects”

Smith said he opposes re-establishing state toll plazas.

“A toll is a tax,” he said. “I will not raise any taxes. We need to spend our tax money better.”

Malloy, who has been beset by perennial budget deficits and an underfunded pension system, said in April that he would not seek a third term in 2018. Weeks after the budget was approved in late October – four months after the fiscal year began - Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman (D-Tolland) announced that she would not seek the state’s highest office.

By then, former West Hartford Mayor Jonathan Harris, Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, former Democratic state Vice Chairman Dita Bhargava of Greenwich, former state Veterans’ Affairs Commissioner Sean Connolly, Middletown Mayor Dan Drew, Branford business leader Jacey Wyatt and education consultant Mark Stewart Greenstein of West Hartford were in the race.

Additionally Comptroller Kevin Lembo of Guilford had entered and then withdrew and intends to seek a third term for his current post, and former U.S. Assistant Attorney Chris Mattei of Hartford withdrew and is now running for state Attorney General. Last week Drew departed the race one year to the week that he had become the first candidate of either party to seek the $150,000-a-year position.

Additional pieces to the jigsaw puzzle arrived recently with former U.S. Senate and gubernatorial contender Ned Lamont of Greenwich formally entering the field this week and former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz of Middletown and Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin apparantly on the verge of taking that step.

Smith said since the state currently has a projected $207.8 million deficit for the current fiscal year, he will not seek public campaign financing through the Citizen Election Program. Candidates from both major parties have reached the $250,000 threshold in small contributions for the program or are seeking to reach that goal.

The convention will be in May and the eventual nominee will probably be determined in an August 14 primary.

Smith, who described himself as “a left-of-center Democrat,” said he doesn’t agree with former Clinton White House senior advisor Doug Sosnik, a Connecticut native, who recently wrote in The Washington Post that the Democratic progressives have won the tug of war with the centrists of the Bill Clinton era when the federal government exercised fiscal discipline and had its only budget surpluses since 1969.

However, he embraces some progressive policy positions, such as establishing a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

“The record shows that it doesn’t cost us jobs,” said Smith.

He also opposes seeking further concessions from the collective bargaining units, who negotiated a new agreement with the state last year that reportedly will save $1.57 billion during the current budget cycle and $24 billion over the next 20 years.

He said Democrats have become more energized since Trump’s wafer-thin victory over Hillary Clinton and his poor poll ratings through his first year in office.

“After the 2016 election, people kept saying, ‘What are we going to do?’ ” recalled Smith, who was an advisor in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

As he began stumping for votes, Smith said he will try to demonstrate the same interpersonal communication that put Bill Clinton in the White House.

“He cared about people genuinely, and he listened,” he said. “If you were talking to him at an event it was as if you were the only person in the room. He wasn’t looking around the room to see if there was someone more important to talk to.”