The Ridgefield Chamber of Commerce’s “Wine, Cheese and Chamber Chat”event on Aug. 11 offered local business professionals a chance to network among themselves and to gain insight from First Selectman Rudy Marconi on the issues impacting the town.
Marconi, who has served seven consecutive terms as first selectman since 1999, took time from the event to speak with the Business Journal, noting how “business is an important part of every municipality in Connecticut.”
Marconi praised the chamber’s event as keeping open the conversation between elected officials and the business community.
“They should be hand-in-hand in agreement,”he said of the relationship he has sought to foster between the town and its businesses. “We meet, we talk, we’re friends. Anything they need of me, I’ll do anything I can to help. Because commerce in our community is very, very important ”” but the most important thing is to shop local.
“I know people like to go to the big malls and see everything that’s there,”he continued. “But then they shouldn’t ask, ”˜Why did that store close?’ when they’re heading to a mall. If you want a viable downtown and an active community, you need to support that. Even if it costs you another dollar for something, support the downtown. Support the merchants in this community.”
Marconi indicated that close ties between the town government and businesses are central to his approach.
“Here in our community, whether it is in commerce, the downtown area, Copp’s Hill, Branchville, wherever you are, we are working continuously to make things better,”he stated.
Marconi added that the town was consulting landscape architects to plan upcoming physical improvements. He said his office was in the process of asking questions such as “What do we do to change downtown that will bring more people into our community?”
To that end, Marconi pointed to plans for a revamped Main Street via a $4 million dollar project backed by the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
“It’s a project that we’ve been looking at for the last 10 years it’s finally happening now,”he said, explaining that the upgrades will include a major replanting effort to provide shade trees, the addition of more turn lanes to aid in traffic flow and updated curbs to improve pedestrian safety.
“It’s not going to be a nonstop 25 miles per hour straight through town,”Marconi allowed, “but it will be a lot smoother than it has been.”
Traffic snarls have been one of the primary complaints Marconi has heard lately, particularly given the recent influx of new residents. He acknowledged that Ridgefield has become a destination not only for new residents, but also visitors ”” especially as the town’s arts and culture attractions have become increasingly popular.
To accommodate this new activity, Marconi said that efforts are being made to improve pedestrian access, particularly near the train station. Getting people out of cars, particularly if service along the Danbury branch line improves, is among his goals.
