The Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce covers the areas of Auburn, Durham, Greene, Leeds, Lewiston, Lisbon, Livermore, Livermore Falls, Mechanic Falls, Minot, Poland, Sabattus, Turner, and Wales. The Chamber is an independent, member-supported business organization, which exists to promote a positive business environment that contributes to the community and economic vitality of the Androscoggin County region. The Chamber's mission is accomplished through business advocacy, member support services, regional image development and business-education partnerships.

• Affordable seminars and workshops and a free lending library provide "need to know" business information.
• Monthly membership programs to keep you abreast of trend-setting business and community issues.
• Access to personalized business assistance through staff resources and member-to-members support programs.
• Targeted business marketing and promotional opportunities to extend your advertising reach.
• Networking events that expand business contacts and business referrals that bring customers and clients to your door.

• Addressing the region's economic and business needs through legislative advocacy and direct business involvement in economic policy development.
• Enhancing the business and economic development potential of the region through image building campaigns, beautification efforts, promotional publications and high visibility community events.
• Stimulating consumer and business investment through the "Think Local" campaign.
• Improving the quality of educational resources for children and adults through business education partnerships.
• Developing new community leadership capacity through the Androscoggin Leadership Development Institute.

Below is a list of factors that affect our entire community and a summary, from The Chamber, explaining where they stand on each issue.

Androscoggin County continues to make important contributions to the state and national economy. Our ability to grow depends on sustaining the manufacturing sector as a source of quality jobs, enhancing agricultural production capacity, and increasing the area's role as a regional service and distribution center. We must move forward in the areas of improving transportation, reducing government mandates, and streamlining regulation while defending the positive changes that have been previously accomplished. The Chamber reemphasizes that a positive business environment is beneficial to all segments of our society. "Quality of Life" begins with a good job, and good jobs begin, and are sustained by, a healthy economic climate.

We strongly recommend concerted state and federal action to restore sound tax and fiscal policies, to reduce the size of government, to a level taxpayers, can afford and to make strategic investments that stimulate economic growth and assure the long-term competitiveness of American businesses. Achieving these goals will require tax and spending controls, budget process reforms to establish clear spending priorities and eliminate nonessential services, and tax policies which encourage private sector jobs-producing investments.

Maine businesses are vital to the state's economy. Their growth and prosperity equates to economically healthy families and viable communities. Through regulation, state government has a direct impact on the health of our businesses. The time in which it takes regulatory decisions to be made and the cost that these decisions impose is often a detriment to business growth. In 1996, less than one-fifth of Maine businesses thought they were getting good service from state government for what they paid in taxes. We see State government as overly regulatory, and sometimes unaccountable to the public it serves, and without common sense in its application and interpretation of laws and regulations.

Building a dynamic economic future for Androscoggin County demands investments in workforce training and excellence in educational quality. We must have total community involvement with public and private investments to provide students and educators at all levels with the tools to achieve world-class standards for the 21st century.

The Chamber advocates the development of business policies that encourage and support continuing education of employees and parental involvement in the education of their children.

Transportation is critical to the economic health and development of Androscoggin County. We support a planned program of infrastructure investments in our highways, bridges, public transit, rail and air systems and other cost-effective alternative modes. While transportation capital investment needs to continue to exceed available resources, we do not believe the Maine economy can support further increases in user fees or fuel taxes. Maine must prudently allocate the resources available from the current funding partnership of Federal, State and local governments, and the private sector.

The Chamber is committed to working with the Lewiston-Auburn Comprehensive Transportation Study (LACTS), the Regional Transportation Advisory Committee (RATC), The Lewiston-Auburn Airport Board, the Maine Turnpike Authority and the Department of Transportation to address the transportation needs of the region and assure that the Androscoggin County receives a fair share of the State's transportation improvement dollars.

Maine's natural resources are a source of economic strength and the foundation for the quality of life enjoyed by residents across the State. In our region, agricultural lands, timber lots, and the Androscoggin River provide not only employment, but also recreational, tourism, and scenic value. Economic growth and environmental quality should be seen as mutually supportive.

We believe that Maine can effectively utilize its unique natural resources and enhance its environmental quality by developing and managing infrastructure systems to minimize harmful impacts on the environment, supporting incentives for public and private investment in environmental technologies, providing public access for recreational use of appropriate resources, and focusing Maine's regulatory systems on our most serious environmental risks in a predictable, cost-effective, and flexible manner.

Local governments are faced with increasing demands for local services at lower costs. While many services are provided through cooperative inter-local agreements, many more opportunities exist for combined efforts that will improve governmental efficiency and effectiveness. The L/A Together Commission recommended significant changes in the ways the Cities of Lewiston and Auburn work together. This same process should also be implemented in other areas of our region to uncover economies of scale at an even broader level.