What is the function of the Chamber of Commerce?

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

“Letters To The Editor” do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Jefferson County Post nor any of its employees.  The Jefferson County Post does not underwrite any of the facts or situations mentioned in the letters.

Submitted by: David Gerard, New Market

What is the function of the Chamber of Commerce? According to their national mission statement it is to promote business. This promotion is the primary goal of the chamber. It takes precedence over education, quality of life, health and welfare of citizens, and the environment. The bottom line is that they are beholden to big business, not to taxpayers.

In Jefferson County, primary support for the chamber and its’ shadow organization EDOC, comes from local tax dollars. In the last 5 years over 1.7 million tax dollars have been given to the chamber and EDOC. This is in addition to the amount that the county and four towns give to belong to the chamber. This is more money than is given to all the fire departments in the county combined, and we know how valuable a service those organizations do for all the citizens of Jefferson County.

What have we gotten for this investment of tax dollars? To be fair the chamber has a nice website that promotes the county, and the tourism emphasis and activities around the lakes has generated income for local businesses. That is what the chamber is supposed to do, and its’ support for those activities should come from chamber members-not from tax dollars. What else have we gotten? We have about 200 acres of land that was purchased by Norfolk Southern in New Market that is sitting idle. Houses and buildings have been demolished, and people were made to feel they had to sell to prevent their land from being taken. It would be interesting to see if this land had decreased in value and thus is generating less tax money. Then we have the megasite disaster. EDOC had a big gathering and announced that we were going to “develop” over 1500 acres of prime farmland for an imaginary car manufacturer. Of course the company they hired to push this project was also pushing the same project in North Carolina and Georgia. Thankfully, concerned citizens and landowners banded together and successfully demonstrated how poorly conceived this idea was.

We now have an Industrial Development Board that is actively pursuing 2-3 parcels of land for business/industrial development. This board is appointed by the county commission, and thus is answerable to the citizens. If the tax dollars that had been going to the chamber and EDOC had been set aside for use by the IDB we could be well on our way to having land available and developed for businesses to use.

The chamber and EDOC continue to work in secret and refuse to have open meetings or make their deliberations public, while taking our tax dollars. It is time that the actions of these groups become completely transparent to the taxpayers who support them. If they do not, then it is time for the county commission to withdraw all tax dollars from the chamber and EDOC.

Submitted by: David Gerard, New Market