Fulfilling Our Mission With Legislative Forums

Let me begin by reminding you about our mission: “The Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce is an advocate for business, the authoritative informational source on matters affecting business, and the unwavering champion for the region’s economic health.” As part of the advocacy piece of our mission statement, every year we provide candidate forums at our monthly breakfast events to allow our members the opportunity to learn more about those running for office and where they stand on important economic issues.
 
This is a light election year and yet it’s an important local election year. The Chamber’s Legislative Action Committee looked to present forums with candidates running for Dutchess County Comptroller and Town of Poughkeepsie Supervisor, as we have had done in the past. Unfortunately, however, we were unable to get the candidates to agree on a forum.
 
There are other important local elections this year, including each of the 25 Dutchess County Legislature seats as well as various town and village races. We do try to present information that will be of use to a large number of our members and, being geographically diverse, we were not able find another suitable forum to present and still be fair by giving equal time to all candidates running for office.
 
We pride ourselves on being an unbiased organization and the Chamber does not endorse candidates running for office. Our goal is to bring the information to our constituents in order for you to decide who the best candidate to represent your business is.
 
We are still planning to bring our elected officials in front of our members, and have invited members of our state delegation to participate in legislative forums, with our New York State Assembly members providing updates and answering questions at our September breakfast, and our State Senators doing the same in October. Our Chamber members will have the opportunity to ask economic-related questions of their representatives at these events.
 
Personally I am disappointed we cannot provide our usual candidate forums this season and it is imperative that you know that we did attempt to do so. Regardless, we will still continue to advocate on behalf of businesses to ensure your voices are heard on issues that are significant to your business and our economy. We greatly appreciate all of our elected officials who are advocating on behalf of our business community, and we look forward to working with each of them moving forward.
 
I hope to see you at these breakfast forums, if not before. And remember, always Think Local First!
 
            Frank Castella Jr. is President and CEO of the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce