Business community calls for a unified vision to accelerate recovery from COVID-19
BATON ROUGE, La. (August 6, 2020) — The Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) today released its 2020 East Baton Rouge Mayoral and Metropolitan Council Election Platform. The full platform, which can be found at brac.org/ebr-elections-platform/, charges candidates to proactively and collaboratively lead a series of policies and action to drive economic recovery, prioritize economic development, and improve quality of life. The 10-point platform calls for a commitment from candidates to:
- Prioritize economic development and job creation, creating a unified vision to accelerate recovery from COVID-19
- Develop and drive significant financial investment into redevelopment and economic development in North Baton Rouge
- Improve and build traditional and multi-modal infrastructure
- Make it easier and more efficient to do business in and with the city-parish
- Aggressively drive redevelopment, blight abatement, and public maintenance
- Advance civic enhancement projects that will improve EBR’s quality of place
- Increase the number of people earning high-quality, industry-based credentials via EmployBR’s workforce development services
- Lower the crime rate and increase public trust in law enforcement
- Manage an equitable and transparent separation of the City of St. George, if the court challenge fails
- Foster a culture of transparency and accountability
“The next Mayor and Metro Council members of East Baton Rouge must change the tenor of city-parish politics, successfully manage recovery from COVID-19, and strive to build a special place where talented people want and have opportunities to live, work, play, and thrive,” said BRAC board chair Flynn Foster. “We have a huge expectation of faster improvement and progress, to ensure not only recovery from COVID-19, but advancement beyond that as well.”
The platform includes a call to action for the Mayor and Metro Council to create a bipartisan agenda identifying common ground upon which to lead. It asks them to do so collaboratively, seeking real solutions, and demonstrating responsible compromise, civil discourse, and equitable justice.
“The business community has repeatedly expressed frustration at a lack of coordinated, unified, rapid progress to improve Baton Rouge for the better,” said Adam Knapp, president and CEO of BRAC. “Before anything else, we urge our local leaders to create a coordinated agenda for what they will actually accomplish. Their commitment to do this work together will either accelerate or hamstring our recovery and make the path to something better than what we had prior to the pandemic within reach or that much farther out of it.”
About the Baton Rouge Area Chamber
The Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) leads economic development in the nine-parish Baton Rouge Area, working to grow jobs and wealth and to improve the business climate and competitiveness in the region. Today, BRAC investors include more than 1,500 small businesses, midsize firms, large industry and entrepreneurial startups, as well as individuals and organizations that support business and economic development. In this capacity, BRAC serves as the voice of the business community, providing knowledge, access, services and advocacy. More information is available at brac.org.
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