O ver 100 HBRA members and guests attended the October 5th General Membership Meeting at The Waters Edge at Giovanni's and sponsored by United Bank. The evening's speaker was Peter Gioia, Chief Economist with the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA). Mr. Gioia was honest and forthright in his assessment of CT - job growth is stubbornly slow as Connecticut's only recovered eight jobs for every 10 lost during the 2008-2010 recession. And as he stated, "And there finally seems to be widespread recognition that the lion's share of new jobs are not as highpaying as the ones they're replacing." Our membership concurred as this has impacted residential building in Fairfield County. His message that evening was clear: Connecticut needs to find a solution that starts with NO anti-business legislation, NO new taxes-better yet, tax cuts for investment and good job creation and a welcome to business growth. Before questions came from the group, he closed with it was all of our duty to make sure the state legislators elected in November are pro-business and pro-job creation, otherwise the surrounding states will continue to take our corporate base (as they have in the last year) causing even more of an exodus of CT residents. The evening was capped off with two drawings. One for the Membership raffle - the winning name was not present so the November drawing will be for $500. The other was a beautiful basket supplied by Frank Webb's Bath Center won by Dan Harris of Reynolds and Rowella, LLP. Peter Gioia's blog: The Gioia Report can be found at https://www.cbia.com/news/category/ gioia-report/ October 2016 | HBRA of Fairfield County | 13
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