The Cobb Chamber’s 2012 Legislative Agenda represents our commitment to creating an improved business climate and quality of life for Cobb County, our region and state.
This agenda was created for one reason...high quality job creation at all skill levels.
Our agenda addresses the key concerns of our 5,400 members from 2,500 firms as well as the feedback we received from nearly 2,000 residents, business and community leaders during the research phase of Cobb’s Competitive EDGE (Economic Development for a Growing Economy), the community’s public-private economic development strategy conducted by the Chamber and Market Street Services to generate high-wage job growth in Cobb, Metro Atlanta, and Georgia’s Innovation Crescent regions.
Four listening sessions were also held in the fall with key volunteers from the Chamber’s Government Affairs Committee and our strategic partners in government, education, and healthcare who also offered specific expertise and perspectives in order to thoroughly evaluate these issues and their potential impact on businesses and the community.
The Cobb Chamber strongly believes the positions taken here will provide us with the tools needed to create quality jobs and improve the quality of life and standard of living for citizens in Cobb County and the metro Atlanta region.
Your support on these issues is critical to our success.
Fractional Education & Transportation SPLOST
As our community matures our need for a full penny for both the Education and Transportation SPLOST’s is diminishing.
We believe Cobb should lead an effort to allow for communities in Georgia to bring a referendum that would be a Fractional (less than a penny) SPLOST before the voters. A Fractional SPLOST could potentially allow, at a later date, Cobb voters to reduce the full penny for both the Education and Transportation to a half penny each. We believe that potential changes to allow for a portion of those dollars to be used for maintenance and operations for existing capital would be a very positive legislative change.
Transportation Investment Act Referendum
Transportation is a defining issue for Cobb and the Atlanta region. A recent Cobb Competitive EDGE community-wide survey of more than 1,600 residents and businesses of Cobb’s show transportation mobility and traffic congestion are Cobb’s top challenge. We believe that our future success as a county, region and state depend on our current and future transportation challenges being met and overcome.
Passage of the Transportation Investment Act Referendum in July 2012 and its investment of $7.2 billion NEW dollars to our region over ten years (in addition to our own local SPLOST and state and federal projects) will address critical transportation issues while making necessary infrastructure investments vital to our long-term health and competitiveness as a county and region. Ultimately, passage of the TIA Referendum is about jobs, quality of life and time not spent in traffic.
For more information on the TIA Referendum, visit www.cobbchamber.org/tia.
Economic Development
Economic Development and the recruitment/retention of jobs is the Cobb Chamber’s primary focus that has led to more than 3,000 new jobs and $250 million in new capital investment from 26 successful relocations or expansion in 2011.
Building a stronger Cobb County will depend on growing job opportunities and earnings for residents at various skill-levels. Georgia should focus on legislation that will help generate and sustain local jobs in Cobb County’s core industry clusters (Aerospace and Advanced Equipment Manufacturing; Information Technology and Software; Professional and Business Services; Wholesale Trade) and growth opportunity industries (Healthcare Services; Travel and Tourism; Bioscience) by addressing the three legs of the best-practice “stool” of economic development: recruitment; existing business retention and expansion; and entrepreneurial and small business development.
We encourage state level efforts to ensure our county, region and state are in the most competitive position possible for future growth through sound, pro-business, job-creating legislation.
K-12 & Higher Education
In order to ensure a qualified workforce for our region, Georgia must continue to make the necessary investments in our educational infrastructure. Cobb enjoys world-class public schools, technical colleges and universities that are all contributing to our region and state job creation efforts and economic competitiveness.
According to the most recent data available by the US Census Bureau, Cobb is one of the most highly educated counties in the US where 45.1% of adults hold a bachelor’s degree or higher and our colleges and universities are home to more than 42,000 students and 8,000 graduates each year. Our K-12 systems are highly regarded by parents and national experts and both Cobb County and Marietta Public Schools have higher graduation rates and scores on key subject areas than most of our peers.
A properly funded and successful education system that offers everything from pre-K to PhDs like we now have in Cobb is a key economic driver for our long-term future.
Healthcare
Healthcare is a growth industry in the United States as well as in Cobb County. We have a tremendous set of resources, both from the provider side to the research and development aspects of bioscience and pharmaceutical developments. Our Cobb’s Competitive EDGE strategy has identified both bioscience and healthcare services as two of our growth opportunities for Cobb. We must do everything we can to foster our existing industry in this sector as we seek to grow future opportunities.