Westchester & Fairfield County Business journals: 092018

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MACK-CALI SELLS TWO BUILDINGS

SPECIAL REPORT

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SEPTEMBER 24, 2018 | VOL. 54, No. 39

YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS

westfaironline.com

The working poor 40% OF WESTCHESTER FAMILIES STRUGGLING TO MAKE ENDS MEET BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH rdeffenbaugh@westfairinc.com

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n a county that often ranks among the country’s most affluent, 40 percent of Westchester residents struggle daily to pay for basic needs such as housing, food, transportation, child care and health care, according to a nonprofit’s recent study. The numbers are part of an updated version of the United Way’s ALICE study. ALICE is an acronym for people who the national nonprofit define as “asset limited, income constrained, employed.” The 40 percent number includes families with incomes below the federal poverty line — defined by the U.S. Census Bureau at $25,100 for a family of four — but also ALICE families with incomes that are above the poverty line but still not enough to keep up with the cost of living. ALICE families are households with working adults who are struggling to pay bills, according to the United Way. They’re forced to make decisions between rent and the electric bill, or prescription drugs against groceries. The » » WORKERS

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Old meets new page 2

Gary Peterson, executive director of the 109-year-old Bijou Theatre in Bridgeport, has rehabbed the interior and added live music to the entertainment mix. Photo by Phil Hall.

Hacked off CONNECTICUT INCREASING CYBERSECURITY EFFORTS AHEAD OF ELECTION

BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com

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onnecticut is ramping up its cybersecurity efforts ahead of the Nov. 6 election, though some observers wonder if the state’s efforts will be sufficient to circumvent the kind of chicanery that was at play during the presidential election in 2016. “Connecticut is really in very good shape” when it comes to averting cyberattacks, declared

Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, who in April led a first-ofits-kind meeting of state, local and federal officials in an effort to protect Connecticut’s 2018 elections from such activities. Merrill said her assessment was partly due to Connecticut’s reliance on paper ballots, which means that its voting machines are not connected to the internet. Nevertheless, she noted that Connecticut was one of 21 states targeted by Russian hacking during the 2016 election, accord-

ing to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Of those, only the Illinois’ voter registration database was successfully hacked, but officials there have maintained that the breach did not affect its election results. While the cyberattacks in ’16 were conducted at least in part as an attempt to influence who would be in charge of the country, Merrill said she didn’t think that attacks this year would be made to unfairly steer either Ned » » CYBERSECURITY

T H E B A N K T H AT ’ S C O M I N G T O YO U ! COS COB – MAIN BRANCH 203.629.8400 444 East Putnam Avenue Cos Cob, CT 06807

E X PE RT L E N DE R S GreenwichFirst.com NMLS# 510513

STAMFORD – SUMMER ST. BRANCH 203.413.6101 900 Summer Street Stamford, CT 06905

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