7 | CONSIDER THE CRAB April 17, 2017 | VOL. 53, No. 16
11 | CELEBRATING DIVERSITY
YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS
westfaironline.com
GE leaves ‘a hole in Fairfield’s soul’ — and economy BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
W
won a little too easily. “In the biggest decision that has ever come before the Board of Regents, the FAC is shocked at the lack of specificity in President Ojakian’s ‘Students First’ proposal, and the lack of transparent deliberation that went into passing it,” the group said in a statement issued in the wake of the approval. “The FAC expects to have representatives from the FAC on all implementation teams, and that all impacted CSCU stakeholders and personnel will also be represented.” The Faculty Advisory Committee was created by the legislature to advise both the Board of Regents and the legislative
hat does the future look like for Fairfield County in the aftermath of General Electric’s departure last year? Fairly gloomy — even if one discounts GE’s relocation to Boston entirely. That was the main takeaway of “Moving Forward in the Absence of GE,” Fairfield University’s inaugural Masters of Public Administration summit held April 11 at the school’s Quick Center for the Arts. Featuring an array of city and state legislators, the discussion primarily involved talk about how everyone needs to knuckle down and work together to help Connecticut’s economy turn around. Those statements led several in the audience of about 550 people to loudly call out “How?” on more than one occasion. Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst, considered a likely Republican candidate for governor next year, said that when a General Electric or Aetna exits — the insurance giant has been in Hartford since the 1850s but has recently flirted with following GE to Boston — it creates a “multiplier effect,” in which the abandoned community not only loses income from departing employees but also from restaurants, dry cleaners, landscapers and other businesses dependent on those employees and their company. Herbst said the costs of living, transportation and property taxes have made Connecticut particularly non businessfriendly. “We need to be facilitators of business,” he said, calling for reducing corporate regulations “where appropriate,” cutting through red tape and implementing more business-friendly tax initiatives.
» College Plan, page 6
» General Electric, page 6
Artful innovation
See story on page 18
From left: Molly Nelson, educator at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum; Bill Burback, Aldrich board member; Rusty Hurd, Wilton Board of Education; Mike Kaltschnee, co-founder, Danbury Hacker Space. The Aldrich and Fairfield University are partnering to create the Summer Institute for educators. Photo credit Mary Harold.
College consolidation plan could save $41M per year BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
T
he Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system on April 6 easily pushed through what its president, Mark Ojakian, termed an “opera-
tional consolidation” plan designed to save the system some $41 million a year. But while its Board of Regents easily approved the “Students First” proposal by a 12-0 vote — William McGurk abstained — many educators within CSCU, including members of its Faculty Advisory Committee, believe that the approval was