Letter from the President, Michael DeLuise
Our businesses rely on our elected officials and the agencies they represent to provide guidance and support. We provide them with our votes and tax dollars expecting them to focus their energies on doing what is best for the communities they serve. It is all too often disappointing when we find the people we trust have let us down. Groups such as your Melville Chamber of Commerce reach out on a regular basis to government officials offering our time, services and dollars to help with projects that will make life on Long Island better for each and every one of us. For more than a decade we have been outspoken advocates for the need of much needed improvements in public transportation, traffic congestion, environment, and the elimination of bureaucratic red tape that to this day stands in the way of doing business on Long Island. We honestly feel we do make a difference. By introducing hundreds of business leaders to regional and national politicians, the Chamber has helped open the door to better communications and problem solving. Throughout the past decade the Melville Chamber of Commerce has not taken one penny of taxpayer money to help us do our job. We have and we will remain neutral when it comes to politics. Without any party or agency affiliations the Melville Chamber is focused on building nonpartisan business/government partnerships dedicated to solving the many challenges of doing business on Long Island. Although we have continually pushed for nonpartisan business government partnerships we find that some agencies supposedly created to work with the community appear to be reluctant to do so. A key project of the Chamber continues to be the important and very viable reopening of the Long Island Railroad station at Republic Airport. This is a very doable project. Without question a train station along the 110 Corridor will be an enormous asset to those who work, live and do business in the area. We have suggested a number of viable plans to the MTA and the Long Island Railroad that could make this project a reality. Sadly our suggestions have only been used by the MTA when they were in need of newspaper headlines. Frankly we do not need headlines. We need positive action. Community minded organizations such as the Melville Chamber of Commerce cannot allow our members to be ignored, used and abused by those who should be helping us. We are certainly willing to do our part in creating a better Long Island. We also have every right to demand those we entrust with our votes and tax dollars to the same. There is absolutely no valid excuse for the mismanagers of organizations such as the MTA to continue their suffocation of our local businesses with unconscionably high taxes used to cover their extraordinary salaries, waste and ineptness. They are the schoolyard bullies we must expel from our community if we are to survive. Long Island businesses must take action immediately and face the future with strength, determination and creativity. We can no longer entrust our future to selfish individuals and organizations that take care of themselves first while pretending to support those of us who find ourselves drowning in a system poisoned by a culture of self-dealing. The American way of doing business that for so long stood as an admirable world model has become a dirty potty in dire need of a good flush and thorough disinfection. We can start making things better by working together as business leaders helping to demand and create active partnerships with government agencies. Please let us know if you would like to join the discussions we have begun regarding public transportation or the the future development of the 110 cargo. Maybe you have another idea. By taking action we can make a difference. If you ever need help please contact me at mdeluise@aol.com or call the Melville Chamber of Commerce office at 631- 777-6260 or visit the Chamber website at www.melvillechamber.org.
Best regards,
Michael DeLuise
President
Melville Chamber of Commerce
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