Finding ways to draw people and businesses into the region has been a challenge for various reasons. Now Guilford is partnering with four other shoreline towns to explore a more targeted approach to bringing businesses to the area. While the Board of Selectmen (BOS) recently approved this action, not all board members were optimistic that the new approach would yield more promising results.

At a recent BOS meeting, Economic Development Coordinator Brian McGlone spoke to the board about a “mini regional” economic development opportunity between the towns of Branford, Durham, Guilford, Madison, and North Branford. McGlone said all of these towns are part of the south central economic development region but now want to band together to do more promotion of this local region.

“We are looking at some regionalization efforts and kind of breaking our larger, 15-town region down into a smaller region where we think we could work and promote some of the assets we have here,” he said. “…There is a belief that we should try to put a little more emphasis on our local region.”

McGlone said the idea would be to find a consultant that would have the five towns target and attract businesses or companies to this specific area, not just New Haven.

“We also recognize that companies don’t just look at a single town when they are looking to move,” he said. “They look at the region, the workplace facilities, the labor pool, transportation, education, and quality of life or lifestyle. In our early meetings we talked about how lifestyle is one of the big strengths of our mini region…We think that could be better promoted to try to attract different companies to come here.”

Each of the five towns has two representatives that make up this mini group. McGlone said each town was being asked to put up between $3,000 and $5,000 to help fund the hiring of a consultant. That was an issue for some members of the BOS.

Selectman Charles Havrda said the town already invests in economic development and while he said economic development is important, he wasn’t sure more money was going to improve current results.

“My concern is we have to be realistic,” he said. “This is not a state where people are lined up to come, and we are making choices and things like that. Is this the direction we want to be spending these kinds of dollars on what is effectively marketing…Is it real? Are we getting anything for our dollars?”

Havrda also expressed concerns about a lack of clarity on this new initiative. First Selectman Matt Hoey said this smaller group wouldn’t just be doing general promotion of the region, it would use the consultant to help find businesses to attract to the area.

“I think this is about identifying a target audience of potential businesses, appealing to lifestyle choices that people make relative to where they want to live, raise their families, and run their businesses,” he said. “We are not looking to bring Amazon to Guilford here. What we are talking about is looking at folks that are entrepreneurs with small companies that could grow here.”

Questions were also raised about how this new initiative would be assessed in terms of success and where any funding for the initiative would come from. McGlone said he has some money in his department budget and Hoey said the Finance Department could look for potential surpluses in the current budget.

McGlone said three of the five other towns have already agreed to the idea and put up the funds. After some discussions, Havrda said he had some grave reservations, but would be willing to vote in favor of $3,000—the low end of the initial ask.

“I am saying that five towns working together could be valuable, but I am also saying that you need to do some work on a plan,” he said. “I am not overly enthusiastic about the vision at this point in time.”

The BOS unanimously approved $3,000 for the five-town mini-economic development initiative.