SEARCH

Our Agenda

The Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) has a demonstrated track record of success and, in 2009, will continue to deliver on its mission of leading economic development in the nine-parish Baton Rouge area.  After completing the third year of its transformation, BRAC is seeing the results that will ensure the Capital Region’s continued growth and progress as the Creative Capital of the South.

BRAC’s 2009 Agenda provides a framework that will drive the organization’s efforts over the coming year.  The agenda is organized by specific topics and then outlines priorities under each.  Each topic will consist of flagship priorities, active initiatives, and policy positions.  It also outlines how BRAC will address each of these.  These items are those most critical to the Baton Rouge area’s economic future as derived from BRAC investor and member feedback.

2009 Top Priorities

  • Business recruitment and retention project wins: conduct aggressive professional marketing, sales, and retention efforts to ensure that the Baton Rouge area captures project wins totaling at least 800 jobs at wages competitive in targeted sectors
  • Digital media competitiveness: further develop our strategy for the digital media sector
  • New local and regional business incentives: encourage the establishment of rapid response funds and other targeted incentives at the parish level (and potentially region-wide) to position our communities to better compete for projects that create high-wage jobs
  • Public education reform: aggressively support key public education reforms such as supporting bold leadership at the system level, creating a strategy for cultivating high-performing charter schools, increasing principal training, and modifying tenure rules to provide greater flexibility for restructuring low performing schools
  • LSU institutional advancement: aggressively support and promote LSU’s development of the next phase of its National Flagship Agenda
  • Southern University institutional advancement: pursue opportunities to support the institutional advancement of Southern University as an economic driver
  • State and regional innovation strategy: champion a state and regional innovation strategy and lead a regional innovation analysis to produce coordinated, best-in-class research park and business acceleration programs
  • Regional transportation solutions to increase mobility: pursue short- and long-term solutions to congestion and inter-parish mobility, including funding for priority regional transportation projects identified by BRAC’s business-led regional transportation group, advancing the Baton Rouge Loop project towards implementation, and conducting research on best practices for regional transportation planning
  • Regional workforce solutions: nurture and develop regional cooperation for the delivery of demand-driven workforce services in the Baton Rouge area and develop expertise for project- and sector-oriented solutions
  • State business taxes and incentives: advocate for targeted tax and incentive reforms that spur growth, remove unorthodox business taxes, and provide small business relief

Download » BRAC's 2009 Agenda: Geared for Innovation

©2009 Baton Rouge Area Chamber® Site Map | Contact