Message From the President

If you haven’t yet voted in your city elections, please do so today! The politics that impact your life the most on a daily basis are local politics.

The Chamber of Commerce is not endorsing any candidate for office in the current municipal elections. We don’t have a political action committee so it would be illegal for us to use funds from dues paid by our members to make campaign contributions.  Some groups or candidates may quote the Chamber in their advertising, and that is their right. 

It’s interesting how some candidates that rated themselves on how business friendly they are now point a finger of frustration at the Chamber.  Their self-rating was apparently good enough when it placed them above other candidates they were facing in the primary election!

Candidates actually picked out their own rating! That’s right they picked out their own rating! Candidates were asked a number of questions and they were asked to rank themselves on a scale how they felt about a particular issue. The “Chamber” didn’t make any choices or select any rankings for any candidate on any issue. We reported the results. Candidates that didn’t make a choice had that “no choice” decision noted.

It’s now up to the voters. The Chamber has made its voice heard. We didn’t tell anyone how to vote, but we asked them to vote. We funded get out the vote efforts across the county in the primary elections and now in the final elections. We have provided guides in the form of a scale, upon which the candidates actually picked their own rating. We have provided Chamber sponsored forums where all candidates were treated equally and fairly.

We would caution you that some candidates are using innuendo as fact.  In some cases there are claims being made that ignore public record and fact. Ask yourself this: “If these whisper campaigns and rumor campaigns had an element of truth in them then why have these issues not been raised before now?” It is because desperation is only now setting in. Make a false claim late enough in a race and your opponent can’t respond. There is no legal requirement for truth in advertising or fact checking when it comes to claims made in political campaigns.