A Grocery Store For Valley Plaza

Kathleen Joy, the chairperson of the Common Council’s Economic Development committee was one of our guests at the February 9th meeting of SUN’s Southside Coalition. SUN’s leaders got a commitment from her to call an early spring meeting of the committee to focus the city’s efforts on getting a grocery store to replace the P & C store leaving Valley Plaza.

The meeting will be held at the plaza, outdoors if weather permits, and will have officials of the city’s Economic Development department and representatives of the plaza’s owners, Ellicott Development of Buffalo.

You’ll be seeing a lot more publicity about this meeting over the next couple of months.

What Do You Think Economic Development Means?

SUN is one of three local groups (the others being the Center for Community Change and Cooperative Federal credit union) that are soliciting neighborhood folks’ opinions on economic development in our neighborhoods and across NY State.

We are asking members to invest 15 minutes of their time to fill out a survey being administered by New York Jobs with Justice. The fill-in-the-blank survey will attempt to provide a snapshot of what kinds of jobs and new businesses New Yorkers want to see in their communities.

The survey is completely confidential. After surveys from Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester, Ithaca, Long Island, NYC etc. are tabulated, Jobs with Justice will use the results to educate legislators about the needs of state residents and how they can amend policies around things such as Industrial Development Agencies to better meet those needs.

Jobs with Justice has also said they will come to Syracuse early in 2008 to discuss the survey results, both statewide and locally.

To fill out a survey, call SUN at 476-7475