There are various benefits to opportunity zones in Connecticut

These zones are impor­tant because they bring in jobs and also cre­ate oth­er busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties as well for the town, offi­cials said.  They help to keep the town sta­ble, finan­cial­ly speak­ing, offi­cials said. The zones help keep the town finan­cial­ly sta­ble by mak­ing sure invest­ments and busi­ness­es run efficiently.

Mans­field Repub­li­can Town Coun­cil Mem­ber David Freud­mann said that he is strong­ly opposed to these zones.

“”I am hos­tile towards the idea of cor­po­rate wel­fare,” Freud­mann said. “I also believe that when projects of a com­mer­cial nature have eco­nom­ic jus­ti­fi­ca­tions they could no longer own, they should use their own mon­ey. It doesn’t seem right. I don’t like it when they come to local gov­ern­ment for mon­ey and oth­er considerations.”

Freud­mann said that the town will end up with many extra­ne­ous pay­ments, such as tax­es and waivers.

“We’re going to be hold­ing the bag with tax incen­tives and fee waivers,” Freud­mann said.

Ned Lam­ont, Connecticut’s gov­er­nor, talked of these zones in a speech he did. Mans­field Town Man­ag­er Der­rik Kennedy acknowl­edged the gov­er­nor in a tweet.

Thank you @GovNedLamont for bring­ing up #Oppor­tu­ni­ty­Zones and want­i­ng to be first. @Mansfield_CT is lead­ing the pack in ana­lyz­ing and mar­ket­ing its Zone with @UConn and @CERCInc

— Der­rik M. Kennedy (@DMKennedy) Feb­ru­ary 20, 2019

We hope that towns will run bet­ter in the future which is what was envi­sioned when we des­ig­nat­ed zones in Mans­field, offi­cials said.