Chamber leader: Funding cuts would threaten L/A business climate
Matt Leonard, who has led the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce less than a year, is wasting no time getting involved in local politics.
Leonard criticized the Auburn City Council’s threat to take away funding for both the Lewiston Auburn Economic Growth Council and a planned study of a possible passenger rail link to Lewiston-Auburn. He said the actions could hurt the area’s business climate, the Sun Journal reported.
"Under the guise of budget shortfalls, the Auburn City Council is moving to unfund two key economic efforts,” Leonard wrote in an online call to action.
The statement says that withdrawing support for the LAEGC sends a message to current trade and business negotiations that “the people of Auburn are not serious about their economic future,” he wrote. Rescinding matched funding to explore the passenger rail “reinforces Auburn’s tentativeness regarding its future, but also informs businesses, investors and its residents that Auburn cannot be trusted to honor its commitments and keep its word,” the statement continues.
In an article posted on the Northern New England Passenger Rail Service website, Charles "Chip" Morrison, Leonard’s predecessor at the chamber, wrote that passenger rail service between Maine’s two largest population centers — Portland and Lewiston-Auburn — could be the single most important economic investment the state of Maine could make right now.
“The most fiscally responsible investments governments at any level can make are investments in infrastructure to create the foundation for business to thrive,” wrote Morrison, who cited the Amtrak Downeaster from Kittery to Brunswick as an example of economic success, with more than 500,000 riders a year who spend millions of dollars in communities along the coast.
Morrison stepped down as president last year. Leonard has already been instrumental in changing the name of the chamber, which was previously known as the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce.
State legislators approved spending $400,000 to develop a plan to bring passenger train service to Lewiston-Auburn last year, and city council members in both Auburn and Lewiston earmarked $50,000 in matching funds to help pay for the study.
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