Fairfield County Business Report

So. This is the Nightly Business Report brought to you by Digital Equipment Corporation and the newest member of the VAX family micro VAX 2. Now every user project team and department can afford the power of a VAX Pacific tell us his group including Pacific Bell know that of Dell and a growing network of diversified businesses. Our strong first year has set the course for a promising future and public television stations across the nation. Good evening everyone. Good knew it was like this often though the Federal Reserve took action to speed up a sluggish economy lower right from eight to seven and one half percent. A discount rate of course is the right the Fed charges the loans to its member bites of the action is likely to be. There is no need to go and fight he said Sun's edge down to seven in 15 16 so on the close.

And that's our Wall Street rubble with a lot of wind up to the Wake start up companies are almost always searching for cash and the source of that cash is often the venture capitalists to share information about their investments and minimize their risks. Venture capitalists are beginning to band together as Lynn plaster reports from Stamford Connecticut when venture capitalist Tom Murphy asked some friends to join him for lunch 11 years ago. He had no idea that nucleus would ultimately become the granddaddy of networks. The Connecticut venture group Murphy chose Stamford as the base a logical decision since the city is the fifth largest venture capital center in the U.S. it's behind New York Chicago Silicon Valley and Boston. Now that the idea of venture capital clubs has spread around the nation the time seemed ripe to band together to form an umbrella organization. The association of venture capital clubs we have with. The addition of montréal this morning 23 members and we reckon that there are perhaps 28 or 29 venture

clubs operating at this point and we all eventually enjoy this. People attend venture capital meetings for a variety of reasons some with money are looking to make investments. Others with great ideas are searching for funding. What draws everybody is the scent of success. Who are these people who call themselves venture capitalists. Where do they come from Connecticut venture group chairman Ted Elliot venture capitalists tend to be people who have perhaps 10 or 15 years of experience many of them come from the investment banking or conventional investing background. Several recently have come from industrial companies. There is one group that consistently supports new Capital Ventures pension funds are still providing 30 percent of the total amounts raised last year or committed to the venture industry last year. So I think that they will continue to be a major provider of the funds

according to one venture capitalist the investment climate is better than ever. I think for the first time in many many years the government has taken an approach that entrepreneurial spirit is good for the country and exports. In addition the venture capital community has raised a great deal of money in recent years but has it available to entrepreneurs. Where do they ensure capitalists invest the 14 billion dollars they raise each year. There's new interest in retailing and service businesses. But according to this group the smart money still seems to be on high tech in Stamford Connecticut. I'm Lynn fluster for the Nightly Business Report. We go to let's go to market model book we bought it at the door but we threw all of your book which is sort of. Woo. Woo.

One of the early waterfront projects was harbor Plaza built in the early 1980s in the Chapin area. But as the demand for office space grew so did interest in reclaiming the shoreline. Still the zoning board which for the last four years has been working on comprehensive rezoning citywide took an interim step to reduce the amount of office space that could be put in place in industrial zones. Most of the active waterfront if you will know where that office speculation was taking

place wasn't just really zoned. So that that has as. But an important limiting factor in office development on the waterfront. Most of the development will be in the south and the coastal target areas marked in blue. This is the 40 acre helco site next to a Yacht Haven. There's a proposal to build offices stores and hundreds of housing units. Then there's the old chocolate factory site near the Pitney Bowes plant. They're already building here offices stores and restaurants. This is the old Richards chemical facility eight acres right here at the end of Canal Street on the waterfront. Starting in May West Chester develop plans to break ground for a new 30 million dollar complex. Stamford Harbor Park is calling it the office space restaurants a marina and parks. People are rediscovering the waterfront as a resource. And it's it's more of a recreational resource and more of it and a static

resource for companies to locate near the water even though they they don't have to be there. Designed a project he and others are concerned about access to the waterfront. The already heavy traffic load City Planning Director John Smith. If it were to go to office or industrial space. That has a traffic burden that really has to be reckoned with. If I were ever the trend turns to residential where the predominant amount of activity is residential that traffic is really counter to the peak flows and is workable. That's one of the reasons that we're looking to mixed use. What would the benefit be to the city. I would hope that a principal would benefit us really want more of a humanitarian one. If we can do that in terms of eliciting a trust fund from developers

to allow people who are now in place to survive economically and not be displaced beyond that if we just fucking rate of billions tax increases whatever the benefits may be are probably at least balanced by the costs of infrastructural improvements that might be necessary to make them. Functional and feasible. GERARDO. The head of the United Auto Workers Union says General Motors has taken an important

step toward ending the strike of its Canadian workers in Fairfield Connecticut a group of prominent they call it was called Kodak takes a candid look at the nation's economy out of ethical York. God says it's time to take stock of what America can do to meet its own funding. It's those and other stories on The Nightly Business Report. We've yelled from. Linda O'Brien. And all gang it. Brought to you by. We have matched well while Kodak with AK is the world's largest manufacturer of photographic supplies Kodak with us seen as something entirely different. Kodak in this case stands for the Committee on developing a barrack and capitalism based in Connecticut. Look at that event last week to discuss the current state of the economy and its own policy objectives. Live reports from Fairfield Connecticut about the group and its product operation

it was a Gathering of Eagles top economists business and labor leaders. Many with government service who meet from time to time looking for ways to bring capitalism to bear on our problem we are trying to determine if we can what the issues are going to be that the American people have to face in the next few years we spent part of the time this morning looking at international issues looking at domestic issues the deficit issue many old ones new ones were thinking about tax problems next year so that there are real live issues and we hope we can understand them define them and then come up with some alternatives and then ultimately recommendations as to what we do about it. But the range of disciplines and political views you present in your perspective is easier to come by than consensus. I think at some point people are going to have to. Everybody will have to stand up and say The time has come to curb the situation and will have to take painful steps. There is a political impasse in the Congress now between the Democrats who refused to cut

spending and a president who refuses to raise taxes. They're going to have to get together and compromise some of their high ideals or the situation is going to get worse. I think we got who gets elected. We are not going to get a tax increase in the next certainly not in the next year. And very likely not in the next two years. I suspect that in due course whichever administration is in Washington is going to come to realize. That huge structural deficits are very damaging over time to our economy. And I'm sure that the political system will respond in due course to begin to bring those deficits back under control. It was a bipartisan group but the majority seem to agree on the need to remedy the budget deficit by a show of hands most attendees indicated they'd been motivated by what they'd heard. When they do agree Kodak members take their views on the road testifying before government bodies and publishing papers vice chairman Hoadley sees the committee's contribution

as part of a mosaic. We're not under allusions that it's easy or it's going to be quick but it's part of the American system that when we face crises somehow people arise to do something about it where one little piece of that arising at the moment. In Fairfield Connecticut. This is the meanest restaurant for the night. It is no surprise. That only one way to spell out the picture on Wall Street today and that's now.