Brandon

Business group back from trek to capital

Chamber officials report that funding for the Main Street project will be difficult to obtain.

By JAY CRIDLIN
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 11, 2003

The Chamber of Commerce is the closest thing Brandon has to a city hall. For a few days this week, it also became the community's link to the capital.

Chamber officials and small-business owners returned Wednesday from their annual Tallahassee Trek, a chance to present their agenda to lawmakers at the capital.

During the three-day trip, about 35 members of the Brandon Chamber discussed a variety of topics with Gov. Jeb Bush, House Speaker Johnnie Byrd and several state representatives.

"It demonstrates to our legislators that we value their time in leadership, because we're taking time from our day-to-day schedules to come up to their place in Tallahassee," said Mike Fencel, chairman of the Brandon Chamber.

Laura Simpson, the chamber's vice president of business and community development, said the annual trek is less about politics than it is about giving business owners a chance to voice their concerns.

"We try not to go up there representing the city government," Simpson said. "We just try to be the business voice and the community voice for Brandon."

The trip gave chamber reps an opportunity to push for $1-million in state funding for the Brandon Main Street Project, a pedestrian-friendly "downtown" south of State Road 60 that will stretch from Providence Road to east of Pauls Drive.

One business owner who went on the Trek said that after sitting in on House and Senate budget meetings, he's not sure how likely that project is to receive funding.

"With the revenue picture being what it is up in Tallahassee, I'm a little doubtful that that's going to happen this year," said Paul Senory, owner of Sencommunications Inc. just west of Brandon.

The trip also gave the Brandon delegation the chance to speak out on statewide issues, such as medical malpractice insurance and workers' compensation insurance.

In addition to Fencel, the chief executive of Brandon Regional Hospital, several local attorneys made the trip, creating some lively discussion about the malpractice issue.

"It's not an adversarial situation," Fencel said. "Everybody does agree that there truly is a medical liability issue that we have to deal with. Not everybody agrees with what the cause of that is, but there's no doubt that malpractice premiums for physicians' insurances are going significantly up, that there are physicians who are leaving the community and that something has to be done."

Officially, Simpson said, the chamber is supportive of lower medical malpractice premiums, increasing the availability of malpractice insurance and asking legislators to review malpractice awards and attorney's fees.

"I believe we have enlightened our delegation and the other speakers with the Brandon Chamber's and the Brandon community's concerns," Simpson said. "We even touched on some small-business issues."

Senory called the trip "one of the important things the chamber does."

"It lets the legislators know that we're interested in what they're doing, and we're going to have some questions in regard to what's getting done and what's not getting done," he said. "That's what our job is, and I think they respect that."