Greenville Chamber releases policy agenda

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The Greenville Chamber announced its policy agenda in tandem with the Upstate Chamber Coalition and SC Metro Chamber Coalition today during its annual legislative breakfast.

The agenda, developed from responses to a fall survey and dozens of meetings with Upstate business leaders, focuses on ongoing COVID-19 liability reform, workforce barriers and broadband access policy, among other issues.

“The business community spoke strongly in 2020 and we scored a number of major policy victories,” Carlos Phillips, Greenville Chamber president and CEO, said in a news release. “The Upstate Chamber Coalition’s successes set up our region to recover quickly from the COVID-19 pandemic. We look forward to building on our successes as we provide key assistance to businesses struggling to recover while keeping our sights on our opportunities to build a better, stronger, more inclusive community.”

The Greenville Chamber also will press for solutions to affordable child care opportunities, affordable housing options, hate crimes legislation, the expansion of non-violent record expungement and employment assistance for returning citizens, according to the news release. Criminal justice and education reform, a need it says was highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, also will be top priorities for the chamber.

The chamber is a proponent on an education reform bill proposed in the S.C. House of Representatives last year that increases teacher pay to the national average, explores pay bands and allows Upstate districts more flexibility to recruit talent.

“As businesses resume hiring and economic growth accelerates, we may quickly find ourselves back where we were in 2019 when many businesses struggled to find top talent,” Max Metcalf, 2021 chairman of the Greenville Chamber board, said in the release. “We have an opportunity now to remove barriers in advance of a hiring acceleration so we may expand the workforce and expand the Upstate’s prosperity.”

The chamber’s top 2021 local priority supports continued progress on the University Ridge and Downtown Conference Center projects, funding Greenlink’s long-term development plan and unifying Greenville’s sewer systems, according to the news release. Chamber investors have also requested the extension of live streamed local government meetings.

“Greenville is expected to have nearly 750,000 people by 2040,” Neil Batavia, vice chairman of advocacy on the chamber’s board of directors. “It is imperative that we invest now — in transit, broadband and 5G, sewer infrastructure, and housing — so that vital infrastructure does not become a liability to economic prosperity.”

The Greenville Chamber and Upstate Chamber Coalition will await President-elect Joe Biden’s nomination of advisors and results of the upcoming U.S. Senate election before releasing its federal policy agenda, according to the release.

More than 100 local business leaders and two dozen local and state elected officials, including S.C. House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Hartsville, attended this year’s legislative breakfast.