A Year Of Opportunity

The 2021 CCM Annual Report shows road ahead

The 2021 CCM Annual Report is heading your way, and in recounting the year – our first full year under COVID – we had a special realization. We’ve never quite had an opportunity like this to not begin anew, but to look at the world with fresh eyes. In 2021 and beyond, your municipality will be embarking on projects with federal funding like never before. And there has never been an environment more geared towards regionalization and collaboration than the times ahead of us.

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) is the leading state-local think tank and premier local government advocate at the State Capitol, tackling issues like government finance and labor relations; our services are geared toward local government because we understand exactly what municipal leaders need; and we are the number one resource on innovative ideas for municipal government.

And we are here to help usher in a new era for Connecticut municipal growth.

This is not surprising considering the unprecedented year that we had in 2020. We called it a sea change year in our annual report last year, and that has turned out to be true. By December, when the first vaccines were rolling out, we were able to breathe a sigh of relief. And throughout 2021, Connecticut has shown how ready we all were to get back to some form of normal by being one of the nation’s leaders in vaccination rates and at times – for some weeks and months – having the lowest per capita infection rates in the country.

In fact, Connecticut was recently placed at the top of the list for Safest States during COVID by Wallethub. We cannot downplay the role that our State leadership has played in this, but the boots on the ground were in our towns and cities. It was the work all of you did in working together, with public health departments and districts, and of course, the residents of this great state.

It has been tough adjusting to this new normal – but each passing day we start to approach a world that looks more like March 2019 than March 2020. This isn’t to deny the ongoing concerns of the pandemic, but to say that we are building a path out of it even as we gracefully deal with the restrictions it places on us.

We look forward to the opportunities afforded to us by the ARPA funding, infrastructure funding, and possibly more. We look forward to the possibility of regionalization and cooperation among municipalities. We look forward to a time when we can get back into rooms together more regularly because the Convention reminded us how special how valuable our time together is.

Most of all we look forward to making the everyday life of every citizen of Connecticut better. It is our goal every year, and every year we have our successes, but no time has presented us with so much opportunity. It will be hard work, but for many of us it will be the most rewarding work we can do.