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Your Chamber of Commerce: Planning for 2025
Last week, your Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors held its annual planning retreat. Among numerous topics, the Board discussed its Government Affairs goals for 2025 based on proposed goals recommended by the Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee.
For the past ten years, the Chamber’s top two goals have been consistent: (1) ensuring a long-term sustainable water supply, and (2) a balanced choice of options for housing that's affordable for the local workforce. Member surveys, member feedback to staff, and electronic surveys associated with the Annual Leadership Lunch have confirmed to Chamber leaders that insufficient housing and insufficient water remain the biggest challenges to running a local business. In fact, these goals are intertwined, as the lack of sufficient water is one of the major obstacles to new housing construction on the Monterey Peninsula. In 2025, there will be public debate on the potential sufficiency of water from the Monterey One Water (M1W) Pure Water Monterey Expansion project and the possibility of the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) easing or even rescinding the 2009 Cease and Desist Order that severely constricts the installation of new water meters.
Other ongoing Chamber goals include "quality of life issues" and transportation improvements. There has been obvious and measurable progress on the transportation goals in the past ten years, especially after Monterey County voters in 2016 approved Measure X, a sales tax to fund regional and local transportation projects. In addition, City of Monterey voters provided funding for city transportation improvements by approving the Measure P sales tax in 2014 and then continuing the sales tax for the long-term by approving Measure S in 2018. Meanwhile, the California Senate Bill 1 gas tax enacted in 2017 has also provided state funding for transportation projects in our region. No one likes paying more taxes, but the condition of local and county highways and streets has clearly improved as a result.
All of these goals also relate to another ongoing objective of the Chamber: continuing to demonstrate the value and capabilities of the local military bases. To fend off efforts of other states to convince the U.S. Department of Defense to move the military bases out of Monterey County, our region needs to advance on housing supply, water supply, quality of life, conditions of our transportation networks, and the performance of primary and secondary schools.
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