Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton says Connecticut’s colleges should focus more on targeted job skills since digitization has transformed the employment market.
“This is not a normal job environment,” said the mayor, who placed a distant second in the balloting for the gubernatorial nomination at the Republican state convention in May 2014.
“There are jobs, but they’re for very targeted, specific skills,” he said in a May 29, 2014 interview at Danbury City Hall. “The B.A. in the Liberal Arts isn’t going to get you a job anymore. It used to be that that kind of person could work for a finance company and learn through on the job. That’s gone.”
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Mr. Boughton - who is seeking the GOP gubernatorial nomination in an Aug. 12 primary against convention nominee Tom Foley, a Greenwich businessman, and third-place finisher John McKinney of Fairfield, the state Senate Minority Leade - said the biggest areas of job growth in Connecticut over the coming years will be mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, finance, bioscience and pharmaceuticals.
Additionally, U.S. Rep. John Larson (D-1) of East Hartford has said Connecticut is already a leader in fuel cell technology and that it will eventually become its largest export.
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Fuel Cell Energy in Danbury, for example, is the world leader in mega-watt installations, including a plant in Bridgeport that is the largest in North America.
The winner of the Republican primary will face first-term Democrat Dannel Malloy of Stamford in the Nov. 4 election. Mr. Malloy defeated Mr. Foley by about 6,400 votes in 2010. Mr. Boughton was Mr. Foley’s running mate for lieutenant governor in that campaign.
Mr. Boughton, who was initially elected in 2001 and is the longest serving mayor in Danbury’s history, formally entered the race for governor in January 2014 and later that month formed a ticket with former Groton Mayor Heather Somers who is seeking the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor. However, Ms. Somers announced shortly after the convention in May that she would instead run as a solo candidate for the second position on the ticket.
In late May, Mr. Boughton announced that he would join forces with Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti, who had been running for the GOP nomination for governor. They immediately began collecting the 8,190 petition signatures that would be needed by June 10 to get Mr. Lauretti on the ballot for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor.
Mr. Boughton, who taught Social Studies at Danbury High School from 1987 to 2001, said that Ms. Somers broke a political rule by reneging on a commitment to be running mate.
He has said in politics your word is your bond.
“There are projects that I promised seven, eight years ago, and I probably shouldn’t have given my word, but I got it done for the people of Danbury,” Mr. Boughton said. “In politics the currency is in keeping your word.”
On the economy, the mayor and the other Republican gubernatorial hopefuls have been critical of Mr. Malloy’s First Five/Next Five program that has provided state assistance to major employers. They have called it corporate welfare that has been given to companies that had no intention of leaving the state.
In particular, Mr. Boughton has said Mr. Malloy made a huge error in providing up to $115 million in state assistance to Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world, so that it could move from Westport to Stamford.
However, HartfordCourant.com reported in 2012 that Bridgewater Associates had received offers from New York City and the state of New Jersey.
Additionally, Dr. Enrico Moretti, the University of California at Berkeley Economics professor, stated in his 2012 book, “The New Geography Of Jobs” that over time every brain hub jobs generates five more jobs, two of which are usually attorneys or physicians that have high salaries.
HartfordCourant.com business columnist Dan Haar has praised Mr. Malloy for establishing a vibrant sports media hub in Connecticut through First Five assistance to ESPN in Bristol and NBC Sports in Stamford, the two largest sports media operations in the world.
He wrote that ESPN has expanded its footprint in Bristol with the opening of its Digital 2 building and NBC Sports has transferred many employees from other locations to its Stamford operations.
Dr. Moretti has stated that the Stamford metro area has an average salary of $133,000 for each college-educated worker, the highest in the country.
Mr. Boughton said he is more supportive of the governor’s Small Business Express program, which has provided loans to firms across the state.
“There are some good things,” said the mayor.
However, Mr. Boughton said “there has been no vetting of these businesses,” noting that one of them defaulted because it was bankrupt.
State Rep. Bob Godfrey (D-110) of Danbury, who was first elected in 1988, said in a September 2013 phone interview that he had some reservations about the program since it hadn’t been used before, but that it has been very successful and there have been few companies that defaulted on the loans provided by the state.
Mr. Boughton said the Step Up (Subsidized Training And Employment Program) that reportedly has generated 2,200 jobs for Connecticut business with 100 or fewer employees should be expanded to include municipal governments.
Step Up provides $12,500 to small businesses for training during the first six months that the employee is hired.
Mr. Boughton said that over the recent years the municipal employee base “has been contracting faster than in the private sector” as town and city leaders have had to lay off firefighters, police officers and teachers.
Mr. Malloy said during a forum on Connecticut start-up companies in May 2014 that in less than three and a half years his administration has provided assistance to a combined 1,600 companies between the First Five/Next Five and Small Business Express programs. He said during the previous 16 years combined under former Republican governors John Rowland and then M. Jodi Rell, the state assisted less than 160 companies.
“I would ask anyone walking the street that after helping these 1,600 businesses is it easier to pay your mortgage,” Mr. Boughton said. “You’re going to get a resounding ‘No.’ “
In April 2014, Connecticut had a 6.9 percent unemployment rate, marking the first time in five years it had been below 7 percent. However, the national unemployment rate was notable better at 6.3 percent.
Regarding education, Mr. Boughton has said some of the most “fascinating and exciting things he’s seen in education” have been at the charter schools that he has toured.
He said he supports the establishment of more charter schools as long as they are open to all students in the local school district.
Mr. Malloy has provided more funding for charter schools since he took office in 2011.
Mr. Boughton said in Danbury programs related to Danbury High School could be developed at the city airport and at Danbury Hospital.
On higher education, the mayor said he supports the Board of Regents Transform 2020 program, which was approved as part of the state budget in May 2014.
Dr. Gregory Gray, the president of the Board of Regents, has said the program will provide free courses through the Go Back To Get Ahead program to former students at the 17 schools who left the system at least 18 months ago and now want to return.
The package also will establish distance learning classrooms, upgrade the information technology infrastructure and repair some of the buildings.
“I support any investment into our state university system,” Mr. Boughton said, noting that the Board of Regents - which encompasses the four state universities – including Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, the 12 community colleges and the online Charter Oak State College – has the most students in Connecticut.
However, he reiterated that if he becomes governor he would seek to eliminate the Board of Regents and institute site-based management to lower costs at a time when college tuitions are soaring above the general rate of inflation.
Mr. Boughton said the Board of Regents is “a waste of money” since each of the campus presidents could manage their own programs and report to a local board of trustees, which would report to the Education Committee of the General Assembly.
“That’s all the oversight that you need,” the mayor said. “Right now there is an over-reliance on a huge bureaucracy.”
No mayor has gone directly to Connecticut’s governor’s office since Morgan Bulkeley of Hartford was elected in 1888.
However, over the last 50 years there have been four governors, who had executive experience. Democrat John Dempsey was first selectman of Preston, Republican Thomas Meskill was mayor of New Britain, A Connecticut Party’s Lowell Weicker was first selectman of Greenwich and Mr. Malloy served for 14 years as mayor of Stamford.
Several Connecticut governors have served in Congress or as lieutenant governor immediately before ascending to become the Nutmeg State’s chief executive.
“I think having executive experience in a large city is about the best training ground for being governor of the state of Connecticut,” Mr. Boughton explained. “I think the second best training ground is being a high school Social Studies teacher, where you had to work with 30, 17 year olds at 7:15 in the morning.”
He has said teaching was a source of enjoyment for him but that he has long been interested in public service. His late father, Don Boughton, was mayor of Danbury from 1977 to 1979 and served as the state representative from the 109th District in Danbury from 1993 to 1997.
Mark Boughton ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination in the 138th state House District in 1994 and later was elected in 1998 and served in that seat until he became mayor.
Over the recent years, Mr. Boughton has been noted for his frequent activity on Twitter, where he is known as Big Poppa, a name that some former students at Danbury High School gave him after he named a huge snowstorm “Notorious B.I.G.”
Mr. Boughton said he can be “goofy” in some of his messages but remains aware that he is a chief elected official.
He said his campaign staff advised him to stop using Twitter, apparently because the Democratic State Central Committee has monitored his activity for use as opposition research.
“I’ve got to be me,” Mr. Boughton said regarding his decision to continue sending frequent Tweets.
He said his readership has grown from 10,500 in February 2013 to 15,000 in May 2014, many of them people 25 years of age and under. The mayor said some of them have become more engaged in government as a result of sending messages to Big Poppa.
