Equipped For The Job
Former Gov. John Rowland was only the third-best choice to be economic development czar for the city of Waterbury.
Top-of-the-list, of course, would have been Cohen the Columnist, because he is best at all things, except loading the dishwasher, a chore for which his wife has mysterious rules that only women know.
Next best would have been Porter Goss, a Waterbury boy from a prosperous brass industry family who went off to Yale, joined the CIA and then “retired” and moved to Sanibel, Fla., a small island paradise.
The county government under which Sanibel uneasily existed had plans for the cute little island: 40 trillion houses and condominiums, a nuclear power plant, three amusement parks, 16 strip malls and a hotel tall enough for the patrons to be able to see Mexico on a clear day.
The islanders were having none of it. They escaped from despotic county rule, formed their own city government and elected Porter Goss as their first mayor. He thwarted growth. He trained the alligators to eat real estate developers. And he welcomed tourists, as long as they were very quiet.
Goss went on to be a county commissioner and Congressman For Life in the heavily Republican district. Eventually, he became President Bush’s CIA director. You see? This guy has connections. Not only does he know world leaders, but he also still has a billion or so relatives in the Naugatuck Valley, ready to wine and dine prospective Waterbury employers. Goss could have tweaked what he did so successfully in Florida — and simply done exactly the opposite.
All that being said, Waterbury’s pick to snare new development wasn’t bad, as third choices go. Rowland is also a Waterbury boy, also a former congressman and a governor as well.
Rowland, who constructed a wildly successful political career with a circle of friends and associates and hangers-on and allies, has the right skill set and personality for an economic development slot, working within the regional chamber of commerce.
Of course, the talents that make him well-equipped for the job fuel the same instincts that led to his ethics troubles while governor, which led to the resignation and a year in a federal prison for white-collar bad boys.
His Waterbury appointment has prompted Sunday school-type lectures on sin and redemption and renewal and whether Waterbury should have a convicted felon wining and dining prospective employers and developers. In truth, the folks looking for a place to plop a condo or build a factory don’t care about any of that.
If there is one comic aspect to the Rowland scenario, it may be the reality that many “local” economic development projects are, in fact, a joint effort with the state, which has control of various slush funds and tax breaks.
As Waterbury has stumbled around in its post-industrial funk in recent decades, ethics embarrassments and back-scratching and patronage hires and other assorted management messes have been predictably common.
To some observers, the Rowland hire is more of the same — but they are wrong about that. Rowland’s “corruption” problems were as much about ambiguous, unrealistic and naive ethics rules as about the triumph of greed and evil.
Was Gov. John a little stupid and a bit overreaching? Sure. Even he admits that. But at the end of the day, if he benefits Waterbury as he did Connecticut, the Brass City will anoint him King.
DISCLOSURE: I’m not just another pretty face. My checkered career includes a stint as special assistant to Gov. Rowland, where I was responsible for delivering bags of gold to Cayman Island banks.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
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