Amherst Chamber of Commerce

COUNTY EXECUTIVE COLLINS DELIVERS 10 POINT PLAN

County Executive Chris Collins met with the Amherst Chamber Board of Directors last month and presented his 10 point economic plan, Erie County’s Road to a Bright Future. It was very well received by the board and was unanimously agreed to include it in our 2009 Legislative Agenda.

The plan outline opens with the following statement; “The Road to a Bright Future begins with Erie County capitalizing on its strategic location as a Gateway Community. This will occur when we stop looking at Erie County from a purely local perspective, with its loss of manufacturing and outward movement of people, and start to see Buffalo and Erie County as a community strategically positioned for future job growth and prosperity.”

The Road to a Bright Future starts with a vision and the County Executives is simple…

Erie County will become a world-class community that benefits its citizens by fostering a place where people want to live and work, businesses want to invest and locate and tourists want to visit.

There are ten items that are the focus of the Road to a Bright Future. They are:

Make our Community a Global Gateway.
Focus on Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Small Business
Take Advantage of our Waterfront and Greenway
Promote our Community’s Arts, Culture and Heritage
Make our Community a Tourism Destination
Promote Our Region’s Agricultural Industry
Use Our Higher Education Institutions as a Gateway
Become the Back Office Capital of America
Advance High and Low Tech Manufacturing
Position our Areas As a Medical Powerhouse

The Community Affairs Council will be reviewing this document and flushing our the actions identified by County Executive Collins for the purpose of developing task forces to serve as vetting authorities as there is movement on the specific activities. Further, we will host a town hall type meeting for business leaders in the region to familiarize them with the plan and generate recognition for the value of supporting the plan. If you would like to get involved with or support this very important initiative, email me at cdipirro@amherst.org.