Molinaro meets with community leaders for ‘Broome County’s Next Chapter’

CONKLIN, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – Congressman Marc Molinaro gathered a room full of influential stakeholders today to try to come to a consensus about what Broome County’s top priorities are.

Molinaro held a listening session for his new “Broome County’s Next Chapter” initiative.

Representatives from manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, charities, labor and more met inside Rapid Deployable Systems, or RDS, in Conklin.

The freshman Republican says the goal is to determine a list of funding needs for Broome that he can use in Washington to secure federal funding.

Among the areas Molinaro identified prior to the meeting were economic development, housing, job training and childcare.

The Congressman says Greater Binghamton too often has the tendency to focus on what it doesn’t have rather than on what it does.

“Broome County has all of the right bones, it has all of the right resilience, it has all of the right people to both grow existing job creators, attract new jobs and be a real powerhouse, a more affordable community for the people who live and work here,” said Molinaro.

Today’s session began with a panel discussion lead by Molinaro that featured leaders from Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Universal Instruments and Micron. Then he opened it up to the floor for input from other community leaders.

Molinaro says he plans other listening sessions in the future.

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