The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Lamont, Griebel debate economy
Stefanowski skips first head-to-head for governor candidates
WEST HARTFORD — After months of campaigning throughout Connecticut with little money and about as much name recognition, Oz Griebel of Simsbury on Wednesday night gained partial public access to the stable of contenders vying to be the next governor.
And without the attendance of Bob Stefanowski, the Republican candidate for governor, in the first major debate of the season, Griebel, who petitioned his way onto the Nov. 6 ballot, made the most of it, offering his independent candidacy as the thinkingperson’s alternative to state politics-as-usual.
While he and Democrat Ned Lamont agreed on a few things, at the end of the debate, in his closing remarks, Griebel criticized both his opponents in what might be one of his few debate appearances because of single-digit approval numbers in recent statewide voter surveys.
“We are different than Ned,” Griebel told about 300 people during the hour-long session in an auditorium at the University of St. Joseph.
“A lot of the things that both Bob and Ned have done have been poll-tested,” Griebel said. “Even red meat issues to get you all excited. What we’re trying to demonstrate is that only through candor and integrity and honest, open discussion with everybody, are we going to make progress here. What we’ve said is that only an independent governor can bring both parties together, bring the leaders of business and labor and the health sector together to develop our asset base.”
Griebel has been struggling to be included in major upcoming debates, including two scheduled for the next two weeks, for which he has been ruled ineligible because of the low poll numbers.
“I’m happy to be here with Oz,” Lamont said toward the end of the hour, quipping that he would like to see Griebel included in more debates. “We’ve done a lot of bipartisan work at different colleges, on different issues. He’s focused on this, so give him 10 percent .... But not out of my share,” he said as the crowd chuckled. “We’re running against a guy who won’t even show up.”
Griebel, a 69-year-old former college baseball star and banker, stressed his 25-year commitment to the state’s business community, 16 of them heading the Metro Hartford Alliance.
Griebel (pronounced GREE-bel) is a longtime Republican who ran for the party’s 2010 nomination for governor before deciding last December on an independent run for the state’s top spot with lawyer Monte Frank, a former Democrat from Newtown, as his running mate.
Lamont and Griebel took uncontested swipes at Stefanowski’s campaign promise to eliminate the personal income tax over eight years.
“It’s time you had a governor who told you the truth,” Lamont said. “Eliminating the income tax would be devastating for schools, devastating for our towns and cities.”
Griebel said that — if elected — he would try to lower the rate of the personal income tax. He admitted that a projected $4.5 billion deficit over the next two years is a giant challenge.
“This is serious stuff that has to be dealt with,” he said. “I do not believe in the elimination of the income tax.”
Richard Nelson Griebel’s nickname did not come from the Wizard of Oz, but from the iconic early TV sitcom “Ozzie and Harriet,” which featured teen crooning idol Ricky Nelson.
Both candidates agreed that the state has to do better in partnering local businesses with schools to create a better-educated and trained workforce.
“Don’t go. Stay in Connecticut,” Lamont said in response to a University of St. Joseph undergraduate.
“The first thing employers want to do today is to keep the jobs they have here today,” Griebel said, stressing the need to better communicate with business leaders. “We need to reignite confidence in business owners and business leaders.”
Lamont reiterated his position for new tolls on interstate tractor trailers that use Connecticut highways and use the funding to rehabilitate the roads. He said that brick-and-mortar stores that are subject to the sales tax are at a competitive disadvantage to e-commerce entities that don’t.
Griebel agreed with Lamont that the technology is available to chase after e-commerce transactions.
The debate was co-sponsored by the CT Mirror online newspaper, Connecticut Public Radio and WFSB-TV Channel 3.