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From Defeat an Opportunity
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Business New Haven
12/4/1995
By: BNH
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It is hard to identify what political issue or special interest group was most responsible for defeating casino gambling in Bridgeport. Opponents from across the social, political and business spectrum surfaced with a variety of arguments. In the aftermath of the casino's legislative defeat, the one that matters most is the claim that there are viable economic-development alternatives for Bridgeport.
During and after candidate John Rowland's gubernatorial campaign, he often claimed that business people were not interested in locating in Bridgeport, and that even tax and other incentives would not likely change their views. It followed that the governor and others would come to believe that a major casino development was the best way to alter the Park City's future. Indeed, Rowland's efforts to support Bridgeport and maintain his campaign commitment to a casino development was especially laudable, considering the opposition within his own party and from much of Fairfield County's corporate community.
While even a struggling and spurned city can't claim to redeem a blank check from state government, it's now time for the opponents to live up to their rhetoric and to support Bridgeport's economic development efforts aggressively. Beyond that responsibility and tools of government support must be also come concentrated efforts from Fairfield County's corporate community as well.
Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim noted that Rowland had become a highly visible figure in the Park City as part of his efforts to advance the casino legislation. We hope that the governor maintains his special commitment to rebuilding Bridgeport, and extends those efforts to the state's other cities, as well. His November 28 announcement of the formation of a “Team Bridgeport” may be a step in that direction.
The opportunities to build a consensus to address Bridgeport's needs, and for the governor to prod stand-offish Fairfield County companies, ought to have been enhanced by the casino defeat. Bridgeport deserves it.
Now it's important that those opportunities are seized. A defeat of the casino bill can't be allowed to become a defeat for Bridgeport.
Could It Happen There?
Sometimes companies do things which damage their host communities for a painfully simple reason: They can.
The news that SNET planned to quit its corporate headquarters at 227 Church Street in New Haven certainly elicited enough of a buzz - page one in the Register on Thanksgiving, for one thing. It's a blow to an already reeling downtown, certainly, and should the company relocate its administrative hub outside the Elm City (which it has not to date announced that it would), the impact on the community that spawned Southern New England Telephone a century ago would be incalculable.
It's difficult to imagine a similar scenario in, say, Hartford. There, the momentum to preserve and enhance downtown vitality would be too great a tide for even SNET to swim against. The weight of disapproval from both public officials and private-sector peers simply would not tolerate it.
It's impossible for the outside business community to know what kind of messages SNET Chairman Daniel J. Miglio is hearing from the city administration and top business officials. But if the company's corporate brethren elect to sit this one out, there won't be much left to distinguish New Haven from, say, Bridgeport. No offense to the latter, of course.
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