Business Report
Securing funding to solve the Capital Region’s transportation crisis and enacting fiscal reform top the list of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber’s six public policy pillars for growing the regional economy, as laid out by its gubernatorial election platform.
“While the Baton Rouge area maintains a strong foundation for future expansion, potential barriers—particularly the transportation infrastructure crisis—could jeopardize the momentum,” BRAC says in a news release issued today outlining its top priorities for the next governor. “Strong leadership from Louisiana’s next governor, pursuing smart, job-producing policies, can make a major difference between the Capital Region’s economy slowing down and sliding backward, or fulfilling its potential and reaching even greater heights.”
Also on BRAC’s platform for gubernatorial candidates: committing to making LSU a premier research university at a national level and providing stable, sustainable funding for Southern University and Capital Region community colleges; increasing the supply of educated, trained workers to meet increased workforce demand; prioritizing and incentivizing innovation and the knowledge economy; and protecting access of health care for Louisiana’s workforce, including fully funding public-private hospital partnerships and expanding access to Medicaid.
See the full BRAC gubernatorial election platform.
Today’s release comes amid a month-long media blitz BRAC launched on Tuesday to urge Capital Region residents to press candidates running for seats in this fall’s elections to make finding serious solutions to the area’s traffic woes a top priority. BRAC is also among the organizations and businesses that formed CRISIS, or the Capital Region Industry for Sustainable Infrastructure Solutions, earlier this year to urge candidates to focus on transportation and infrastructure solutions.