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The Future Is Now
Fix state's cities while economy is hot, Rowland tells business group
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Business New Haven
5/1/2000
By: BNH
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"If we can't turn New Haven, Bridgeport, Waterbury and Hartford around now, we'll never be able to do it."
That was the message Gov. John G. Rowland had for some 500 local business people April 26 as he keynoted the 206th annual meeting of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce at the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale.
Connecticut's unprecedented prosperity provides great opportunity to address the problems of its largest cities, which number among the nation's poorest, Rowland said. However, "If we don't make investments in our cities right now, that window of opportunity will close."
The governor cited a 2.3 percent statewide unemployment rate, according to figures released earlier this month by the state's Department of Labor. That figure is the nation's lowest, he said.
However, not all residents are benefiting equally from the roaring economy. "We must find and educate the best workforce possible" to maintain economic momentum, he said.
Rowland also point to the yawning chasm in educational opportunity between cities and suburbs. The dropout rate in the Hartford public-school system, he said, has reached 50 percent. "We have more teenage girls [in Hartford] who become pregnant than who graduate from high school."
Rowland said that when he took office in 1995, the state spent some $300 million annually in welfare payments but only about $20 million in direct payments to child-welfare programs. Under his administration's welfare-to-work initiatives, the former figure has been slashed to about $100 million, while benefits to children have grown to a similar annual level. That change, he said, "has been supported by the business sector, which has provided the training and the jobs" for workers formerly on the dole.
Rowland asserted that some "4,400 new high-tech-type businesses have moved into the state," and that 17 percent of the workforce is now engaged in technology-related labor. "If you're a company that makes low-value, low-quality products, don't come to Connecticut," he said.
The chamber meeting also marked the swan song of former president Matthew Nemerson, who left after 13 years to become senior vice president of the Branford-based Internet firm Lexitech, a position he began April 1.
"In the three weeks since I've joined the exciting world of pre-IPO dot.coms, the NASDAQ has lost a trillion and a half dollars in value," he quipped. "As we all know, timing is everything."
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