Finch: City Is Fuel Cell Capital Of North America

With thousands of solar panels as a backdrop, Mayor Bill Finch conducted a news conference to release his plan for creating green jobs Labor Day weekend.

From the Finch campaign:

“We’ve become known as the fuel cell capital of North America,” said Mayor Finch. “Just last week, the President Obama cited us in his green energy plan, saying that Bridgeport is one of the fifteen cities in the U.S. that are leading the pack in terms of green energy.”

– Click here for more on President Obama’s Bridgeport mention: bit.ly/1XvQSRi.

“We’ve come a long way in the last eight years,” continued Mayor Finch. “We]re going to continue to identify great job creating opportunities like fuel cells for the city of Bridgeport in the future.”

U.S. Congressman Jim Himes, in regards to Mayor FInch’s plan for creating green jobs and producing clean energy, stated that it shows the incumbent will continue making smart investments in the future.

“We need strong leadership to build on the progress that we have made in Bridgeport, and Mayor Bill Finch is the right person for the job,” said Congressman Himes.

“The green jobs creation plan and clean energy initiative that he is unveiling today are examples of the smart investments and forward-looking planning that Bridgeport needs. I look forward to working with him and his team in the future to make Bridgeport an even better place to live and work.”

RESULTS TO DATE
Upon taking office in 2007, Mayor Finch’s first–and only–executive order was to launch a BGreen2020 plan, which is a roadmap for creating green jobs and producing clean energy.

As part of his plan, and with the realization that preparing the city for a more sustainable future starts with job creation, he launched a green business hub called Eco-Technology Park in Bridgeport’s long neglected West Side.

The Eco-Technology Park is now home to dozens of green businesses, such as Tri-State Biodiesel, which is under construction in this, our state’s largest city, adding even more green jobs.

Mayor Finch’s efforts at the Eco-Technology Park have resulted in hundreds of new jobs–with the potential of adding up to 750 more jobs in the near future–and more than $10 million in payroll.

As co-chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Task Force, he’s also making Bridgeport a national leader in clean energy production. The state’s largest city is now home to North America’s largest fuel cell, which powers 15,000 homes with clean energy.

And, Bridgeport will soon be home to thousands of solar panels and another fuel cell atop an old and unused landfill at Green Energy Park, which will also add millions to the tax rolls. This project alone will power an additional 5,000 homes with clean energy, and helping to reduce asthma rates.

Together, these two projects will power 20,000 households with clean energy while ensuring our kids and grandkids breathe cleaner air.

THE FUTURE
Mayor Finch has a five-pronged plan to create jobs and produce clean energy in the future, including:
– Readying Eco-Technology Park for more development: Eco-Technology Park is already home to dozens of green businesses, such as Tri-State Biodiesel, and has been recognized as a national model for green job creation and sustainable development. Moving forward, we will complete the Municipal Plan Development process for the Eco-Technology Park, support businesses already committed to Eco-Technology Park, and identify new clean sites and make underutilized sites available for new business development so we can bring more green jobs to the Park City.

– Recruiting new, and expanding existing, green businesses: Mayor Finch will develop an aggressive green business recruitment and marketing plan to complement our existing green businesses. The city will also partner with local and state universities on the development and attraction of new green businesses, and leverage their expertise to better identify emerging leaders in sectors like energy efficiency technologies and service providers, recycling and reuse technologies, green product manufacturers, green service providers, and green lighting manufacturers and installers.

– Helping green entrepreneurs access capital: The best way to help small businesses grow is to help them access capital. To do that, we will create a $1 million Revolving Loan Fund to help entrepreneurs get flexible financing for machinery and equipment acquisitions and working capital needs. We’ll also partner with the Federal Economic Development Administration and the State Department of Economic & Community Development to provide seed funding for eco-businesses.

– Identifying locations for clean energy production: As we continue to expand Eco-Technology Park, we must identify and prepare more sites for green business development. To facilitate that work, we plan to create a $3-4 million Dedicated Brownfields Assessment and Remediation Fund to fast-track the clean-up of environmentally impaired sites, many of which discourage private investment. Such a fund, supported with EPA and State DECD funding, would result in new developments on brownfields, adding millions of dollars of private investment and hundreds of jobs for the state’s largest city.

– Bolstering public/private, state, and federal government partnerships: Bridgeport’s successful rise to national leader in green technology has benefitted from the strong support of public and private partnerships. In the next term, we plan to expand those relationships to leverage local, state, and federal dollars for infrastructure and utility improvements, signage and landscaping amenities, resiliency measures to protect the Eco-Technology Park against major storm events, and seed funding or financing for new and existing green businesses.

Click here to read Mayor Bill Finch’s plan: bit.ly/1LRkceH.