BRIDGEPORT — Big-name performers who take the stage at the city’s year-old concert amphitheater typically entertain the crowds with their greatest hits. So do mayors delivering state-of-the-city addresses.
That is what Mayor Joe Ganim did Wednesday in his first such speech in-person to the business community since 2019 because of the coronavirus pandemic. And he chose his administration’s arguably biggest economic achievement — the opening of the harborfront concert venue at the shuttered minor league baseball park — as the venue.
“Let’s start with the obvious. Look where we are,” Ganim told the dozens gathered for the Bridgeport Regional Business Council-sponsored event.
Just short of a year away from November’s general election in which he hopes to win a third consecutive term, the incumbent painted a picture of Bridgeport akin to that in the “a new buzz, a new beat” advertising campaign his administration launched earlier this summer.
And, prior to Ganim’s address, developer Howard Saffan, whom city officials tapped in 2017 to build the amphitheater with the help of $12 million in taxpayer dollars, welcomed the guests and provided what could easily be a soundbite in a campaign advertisement for the mayor’s 2023 re-election bid.
“Frankly, without the support of Mayor Ganim this wouldn’t be anything,” Saffan said, adding Bridgeport was experiencing a “renaissance.”
Dan Onofrio, head of the business association, in an interview afterward said that while more needs to be done to help revitalize the downtown, it is “an exciting time for the city” and the message to investors is, “Don’t miss out on Bridgeport.”
But, the...
from News https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Ganim-hypes-Bridgeport-s-successes-glosses-17425589.php
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