Three candidates seek at-large council seat: Connie Boyer

      Connie Boyer, at-large city councilwoman and candidate for the same seat, hopes to spend the next four years on the city council working to improve Fairfield's economy, using as a blueprint the 10-year strategic plan she helped draft.

      Boyer was appointed by Mayor Ed Malloy to fill a vacancy on the council in April. Since then, as chairwoman of the council's economic development committee, she has been working on a number of development initiatives.

      "One thing that I've just started working on is creating a city grants office," she said. Boyer hopes the grants office will help both the city and community groups within Fairfield find, apply for and receive grant money for projects, because "opportunities are being missed."

      Boyer said she also has been involved with a committee working on a marketing plan for Fairfield, something she hopes can lay a solid foundation for the new convention and visitors bureau. If the city has a plan in place, she said, whoever becomes the CVB director will be able to "hit the ground running."

      In addition, Boyer said she is part of a joint effort between the city, Fairfield Area Chamber of Commerce and Fairfield Economic Development Association to come up with a short-term strategy to implement parts of the strategic plan over the next one to three years. Boyer was part of the 24-member committee that wrote the plan.

      Boyer believes solving some of Fairfield's problems will require innovative thinking. For example, she said, although some of the city's sidewalks are in bad shape, the solution isn't as simple as throwing money at the problem.

      "If it was that easy, the city would have fixed it by now," she said.

      Instead, Boyer said, one of the issues she has been discussing with a group of local volunteers is how to solve problems like that on a grassroots level. For example, she said, neighbors could be encouraged to pool their resources to repair the sidewalk along a street, or a fund could be created to help people who can't afford to maintain the sidewalks in front of their houses.

      For the complete story, read the Oct. 29 Fairfield Ledger.