By Sue Harris
The Greater Muskogee Area Chamber of Commerce is the voice of business for Muskogee. We mean business.
The Chamber's 725 members are dedicated to make Muskogee a vital regional hub. The Chamber membership is as diversified as the people who live and work in Muskogee.
The Chamber board recently adopted a resolution recognizing the need for stormwater planning and implementation of best management practices of stormwater. The Chamber encouraged the city council to carefully consider the impact on the business community as well as gain input from businesses in Muskogee that will be affected by the increased fees. During these economic times, businesses, churches and schools are watching every expense and managing the bottom line as efficiently as possible to keep Muskogee citizens employed and businesses afloat.
The Muskogee Chamber is a member of the Tulsa Metro Chamber OneVoice, which is a regional group of cities with a legislative agenda, with recommendations for the state and federal legislature that will impact the greater Tulsa region. Cities that are represented in the OneVoice agenda are Skiatook, Sand Springs, Bixby, Bartlesville, Owasso, Tulsa, Sapulpa, Jenks, Broken Arrow, Collinsville, Glenpool and Muskogee.
The Muskogee Chamber is also an active member of the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce. This membership gives our Chamber access to business issue specialists and state and federal leadership.
The State Chamber provides influence with laws and regulations that affect your bottom line. They have a Grassroots Action Network of e-mail and fax alerts that help unite the lobbying efforts of Oklahoma's business community together with the work of 10 registered lobbyists at both the state and federal levels of government.
We are also a member of the Oklahoma Prosperity Project which provides free business resources for an informed workplace. The prosperity project helps the workplace with voter registration and provides the voter with information and help with election resources.
A newly formed Chamber task force is the Military Affairs task force, and it is focused on supporting and protecting Camp Gruber. The economic impact of Camp Gruber to Muskogee County is phenomenal, and our Chamber is dedicated to the military men and women in uniform who serve there. Past chairman Mike Ebert serves on the State Chamber Oklahoma Military Liaison Committee that will convene the leadership of the communities that have military installations, advocate the consensus issues of those communities at the state and federal levels of government and work with the local chambers to support state legislation that will benefit military facilities and educate people of Oklahoma as to the social and economic impact of the state's military installations.
The city of Muskogee and the Muskogee Chamber work together as members of the Mid Size City Coalition. This is a group of cities dedicated to focusing on mid size city issues and opportunities at the State Capitol.
Working on a local level and meeting monthly during the legislative session is the Paul Revere Legislative Affairs committee. The committee sponsors local public forums and town hall meetings and serves as the catalyst for proactive community partnerships on matters affecting public policy.
Our continued commitment and mission is to be the unified voice of business dedicated to building and promoting a better business and community environment in Muskogee. We invite you to join the Chamber and get involved in shaping Muskogee's future.
