Southeastern Connecticut has reason to anticipate good things in the future in light of the interim report recently completed by the Governor’s Commission On The Economic Diversification Of Southeastern Connecticut.

As an active member of the commission, I understand that some members of our community are disappointed that our interim report does not call for allocating huge sums of taxpayer dollars to “do something” immediately to protect our submarine base against another BRAC someday. Certainly, Governor Rell, commission members, legislators, and southeastern Connecticut residents share the same passion for protecting our base. However, while protecting the future of the base, we must also work to diversify our region’s economy so that we are ready to take advantage of other opportunities for job creation and growth that are, and will continue to become, available to us in a changing world.

Even now, the General Assembly is considering a bipartisan, comprehensive, multi-year, economic development bill that will provide hundreds of millions of dollars for new technologies and the career opportunities for the future. It makes sense for our commission to look at how southeastern Connecticut can best take advantage of the opportunities this statewide commitment of funding will offer to our region.

We also need to prioritize several short- and long-term projects that could receive enthusiastic support from both the state and the region. I strongly believe that it is our ideas, our creativity, and our willingness to commit our resources that will attract both attract state funding and lead to success.

I was pleased to see the diversity of recommendations in the report for us to consider.  While the Governor charged us with learning from our near miss with the BRAC, she also challenged us to look ahead to ideas that will strengthen our region’s economy both with enhancements to the defense industry as well as with innovative ideas for new economic opportunities.  The initial action items deal with concerns we have shared for some time: affordable housing; providing local development capital; advancing an innovative regional transit system; supporting southeastern Connecticut’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy; defining our region’s identity; enhancing online marketing; and supporting key public policies under consideration by the legislature. New to our strategic planning process were proposals to increase Connecticut’s visibility on important defense and homeland security issues in Washington, D.C.; determining  how to benefit from the lessons learned during the BRAC process; creating a more satisfying home for the military; and diversifying the economy through a new state-level defense and homeland security industry cluster.

I look forward in the coming months to continuing our commission’s work to offer a second report, solicit more ideas from the public, and working with Governor Rell, the legislature, and all interested parties in southeastern Connecticut to implement our recommendations.

As always, I am interested in your thoughts regarding any of the issues important to our state.  I can be reached at the Capitol at 1-800-842-1421 or you can send me an e-mail at Catherine.Cook@cga.ct.gov. Also, you will find a great deal of interesting and useful information regarding the legislative process on our website at www.cga.ct.gov. I look forward to hearing from you.