Godfrey Comments On Governor's First Term

• Bob Godfrey On Governor Malloy
• By Scott Benjamin

State Rep. Bob Godfrey (D-110) of Danbury said of the five governors that he has served under since 1989, Dannel Malloy, the current chief executive, “governs the most” and has gotten “more deeply into the nuts and bolts” of state operations.

For example, he said that Mr. Malloy, the former Democratic mayor of Stamford, has eliminated many pages of state regulations and posted the revisions online.

 “He has a lot of ideas and he’s been willing to tackle issues ranging from the budget deficit that he inherited to the preserving defense-related jobs and creating innovation hubs in the state,” said Mr. Godfrey, who had previously served under governors William O’Neill (D-East Hampton), Lowell Weicker (ACP-Essex), John Rowland (R-Middlebury) and M. Jodi Rell (R-Brookfield).

“Jodi Rell often did what was popular, and people still love her,” he said of Mr. Malloy’s immediate predecessor, who was in office for six and a half years and, according to the Quinnipiac University poll, enjoyed unprecedented approval ratings during her early tenure.

“Gov. Malloy has been willing to do what is right rather than what is popular,” the state representative added in a June 17, 2014 phone interview.

For example, Mr. Godfrey said that in a struggling economy Mr. Malloy has not reduced assistance to municipalities.

“The municipal governments are not just another special interest group,” he said. “Without the governor’s efforts and those of the General Assembly, there would have been larger increases in municipal property taxes.”

Mr. Godfrey said Mr. Malloy also has recognized when he made errors.

He said the governor has “made up with the teachers” after making controversial comments in 2012 about how easy it is to achieve tenure in the public schools.

Additionally, Mr. Godfrey said the liquor store owners he has spoken with “are content” with the Sunday hours that were approved in 2012 in an attempt to generate more business, particularly in towns near the state borders.

However, he doesn’t expect Mr. Malloy to revisit his efforts to eliminate the price controls that, according to CTNewsJunkie.com, have made some alcoholic beverages “30 to 40 percent more expensive” than in neighboring states.

“There are ill social consequences in making liquor more available through lower prices,” Mr. Godfrey said.  “It is not the same as eating more Oreos.”

The state representative said Mr. Malloy, who was nominated for a second term at the Democratic state convention in May, has maintained a more ambitious schedule than any of the governors that he has been associated with.

“I don’t know when he sleeps,” said the state representative, who serves as one of the deputy House speakers.

“His schedule is frenetic,” Mr. Godfrey said.

However, the poll released May 9 by Quinnipiac  reported that Mr. Malloy and former Ambassador Tom Foley of Greenwich were tied at 43 percent each.

Mr. Malloy defeated Mr. Foley, the Republican candidate, by a scant 6,400 votes in the 2010 election. Mr. Foley again captured the GOP nomination at the party convention in May and is favored to defeat state Senate Minority Leader John McKinney (R-Fairfield) in the August primary. Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton withdrew June 18 from the GOP race.

Former West Hartford Town Council member Joe Visconti, a Republican, and former state representative and state party director Jonathan Pelto, a Democrat from Mansfield,  are seeking petition signatures to appear on the ballot as third party candidates.

Mr. Godfrey said it is difficult to predict what impact they might have on the election. Chester Republican First Selectman Tom Marsh annexed 17,628 votes – 1.5 percent of the total - in the 2010 gubernatorial election running with the Independent Party. Many of his votes might otherwise have gone to Mr. Foley and boosted him to victory.

“We saw it as a good sign that it was a tie [in the recent poll against Mr. Foley] because we thought the governor would be trailing and we feel confident that he can point out in the campaign why he deserves a second term,” Mr. Godfrey said.

The poll was taken just days after declining budget surplus projections for the next fiscal year prompted Mr. Malloy to withdraw his pledge to issue $55 rebate checks to each taxpayer.

Mr. Godfrey said Mr. Malloy has provided help to 1,600 businesses in the state, far more than his two immediate Republican predecessors did combined over the preceding 16 years; made investments to develop a biosciences hub in Farmington and reinforce the financial services hub in Stamford; decreased the state work force; and made more pre-kindergarten seats available.

Doug Schwartz, the director of the Quinnipiac Poll, stated in a news release that Mr. Malloy has been hampered by the slow economic recovery.

The May Department of Labor figures indicated that Connecticut had a 6.9 percent unemployment rate, the same as in April when the figure was below 7 percent for the first time in five years. However, it is well above the national rate of 6.3 percent.

Mr. Godfrey said the unemployment rate in the metro Danbury area, which extends from New Milford to Bethel, is 5.3 percent, the lowest in the state.

Additionally, he said Mr. Malloy and the General Assembly have helped the area by approving funds to build a fine arts center on Western Connecticut State University’s  (WCSU) west side campus, expand the Danbury branch of Naugatuck Valley Community College and upgrade some Danbury public schools.

Mr. Godfrey said the state will finish the current fiscal year on June 30 with a small surplus that will be placed in the rainy day fund.

“We’ll see,” he said when asked if the budget will have to be revised due to a projected deficit for the fiscal year that will end in June 2015.

The state legislator, who is seeking election to a 14th term this year, said the Connecticut Economic Digest, which is prepared by the University of Connecticut, has stated that the prolonged impact from the “housing bubble” has been “a persistent drag” on the state’s economy. 

Peter Drier, a professor of Politics at Occidental College in California, stated in a May column at NewYorkTimes.com that that nationally the total value of owner-occupied homes “remains $3.2 trillion below 2006 levels” and 9.8 million homeowners, one-fifth of those with mortgages, “still owe more on their mortgages than the market value of their homes.”

Mr. Godfrey said reports indicate that in Connecticut the recovery from the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis didn’t begin until 2013.

He said Connecticut has added more than 40,000 private sector jobs since Mr. Malloy took office in 2011, but that a number of them have been in areas such as leisure and hospitality, which are often “lower-paying jobs.”

In May Mr. Malloy and the General Assembly approved legislation that would provide state assistance to United Technologies Corporation, which has 75,000 employees in Connecticut, to build new facilities and conduct research.

 It is considered a sign that the defense manufacturer - which makes submarines at Electric Boat in Groton, airplane engines at Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford and helicopters at Sikorsky in Stratford – will remain in Connecticut.

However, Mr. Godfrey said the federal budget sequester that began last year has hurt Connecticut’s defense industry, since, despite the congressional delegation’s valiant efforts, there has been fewer contracts.

He said that for every “dollar spent on defense there usually is a multiplier effect of $6 additional dollars spent on other parts of the economy.”

Mr. Godfrey gives Congress poor grades on its efforts to create jobs.

“It is incapable of helping the economy,” he said of Congress. “The debate is so uncivil that it is pathetic.”

“There has not been a single jobs bill since the start of recession six years ago,” Mr. Godfrey added.

As for the future, he said if Mr. Malloy wins a second term he expects that he will seek money to renovate the state’s highways and bridges, which have long been in disrepair.

This month U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Cheshire) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) introduced legislation to increase the federal gas tax by 12 cents a gallon to provide funds for infrastructure projects.

On another topic, Mr. Godfrey said he supports the Transform 2020 plan to revitalize the 17 schools in the state Board of Regents system.

Mr. Malloy has underscored his commitment to the plan at a handful of news conferences over the recent months.

 The package, which was approved by the General Assembly in May, features the Go Back To Get Ahead package, which allows students who had been enrolled in the system to return to school and receive a free course for each of the first three courses that they pay for.

“We need to make options available, because unlike when I was in college more than 40 years ago, people are changing jobs more frequently and need to get re-training,” Mr. Godfrey said.

He said he also supports expanding Charter Oak State College, the online school, which is slated to be the largest area of growth in the system.

“I think the Board of Regents schools should offer more online courses so they can replicate what is going on at colleges around the world,” Mr. Godfrey said.

He said he looks forward to helping to cut the ribbon later this year on WCSU’s Fine Arts building on its west side campus.

However, Mr. Godfrey said many of the students from the university’s growing  School of Visual and Performing Arts will eventually find jobs in New York City and Los Angeles while most of the students graduating from the university overall will be seeking employment in the metro Danbury area.

He said he hopes that the programs at WCSU become even “better aligned” with the local job market.

Dr. Gray has said that the system has “a lot riding on” the upcoming election, since Mr. Malloy has said he would seek bond money to upgrade buildings and information technology, which have been neglected over the recent years.

“As these buildings have gotten older they need to add fiber optics, remove asbestos and develop heating ventilation and air conditioning systems that work,” Mr. Godfrey said.

On a separate topic, Mr. Godfrey said he is cautiously optimistic about expansion in the fuel cell market, which has long been considered a potential growth area in Connecticut.

During the 2010 gubernatorial campaign Mr. Malloy said that the industry was one of four - along with nanno-tech, bio-tech and bio-med – that would see a significant increase in jobs over the coming years.

Fuel Cell Energy, which has its administrative office in Danbury and a manufacturing plant in Torrington, has reportedly grown from about 500 to 650 employees over the last two years.

Recently the company built a facility in Bridgeport that is the largest fuel cell mega-watt installation in the world.

However, Mr. Godfrey lamented that the company’s biggest market is South Korea.

He said the federal government is still too reliant on policies that promote oil and coal instead of promoting renewable energy options.