Upstate Business Leaders Like Spitzer’s Plan
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- January
- 31
Upstate community leaders today endorsed Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s Upstate Revitalization plan that would bring $1 billion to the upstate economy.
Business groups have called on him to lower taxes on businesses and reform the state’s Wicks Law, which drives up costs of public construction projects. Yet Spitzer’s budget calls for new fees and closing business loopholes that some leaders warn will drive up the cost of doing business in New York.
Still, the $1 billion state infusion of cash seems to be to the business groups’ liking.
They said in a news release that the fund is an important part of Spitzer’s pledge to focus attention and resources on improving the upstate economy.
“An economic infusion of this magnitude will go a long way toward jump-starting the Upstate economy and creating much-needed jobs,” said Sandy Parker, president and CEO of the Rochester Business Alliance.
Those who are backing the plan include: Garry Douglas, president, North County Chamber of Commerce; Frank Elias, president, Mohawk Valley Chamber of Commerce; Catherine Glover, president and CEO, Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce; John Lincoln, president, New York Farm Bureau; Darlene Kerr, president, Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce; Patrick Mannion, chairman, Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce; Andrew Rudnick, president and CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership; Robert M. Simpson, president-elect of the Metropolitan Development Association of Syracuse and Central New York; Bill Towsley, president, Greater Syracuse Building Trades; Ken Warner, executive director, UNICON Rochester; Frank Wirt, president, Rochester Building and Construction Trades Council and Randy Wolken, president of the Manufacturers Association of Central New York.
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on Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 11:52 am by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
