government

Community & Local Business Concerns Regarding the National Sustainable Offshore Aquaculture Act of 2009

(HR 4363 – Capps (D-CA)

While this bill ostensibly creates “sustainable” fishery production, in reality it weakens our environment as well as our economies. The Mile High Business Alliance views this proposed bill as an outsourcing of our nation's wealth in combination with the support of large corporations – in effect, funneling our economic opportunities and prosperity out of our local communities.

Wage subsidies available for metro Denver businesses through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Since this summer, I have been covering the ever growing movement of local governments adopting (or at the least formally encouraging) an internal purchasing preference to that which is local. This includes proclamations supporting local vendors as well as point systems that favor awarding contracts to local bidders. Now, I just got wind of an executive order issued by Colorado Governor Bill Ritter directing state agencies to adhere to the Buy American Provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Though this isn't the typical hyper-localized "buy local" proclamation you're used to seeing, it is very important to consider the relative perspective of government-sized purchasing initiatives. This legislation isn't necessarily going to fuel a small town's economy or support a community that's easily tangible to the individual, but it certainly is focused on keeping money within the United States, which will affect us all in the long run.

According to a press release from September 15th 2009, the USDA has launched a new initiative titled Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food as a means to begin a national conversation to help develop local and regional food systems and spur economic opportunity.

I had to copy and paste the summary below because it was so well written on the USDA website:

As we know, spending money locally helps the local economy, not just in the form of immediate expenditure, but the funds have a statistical tendency to circulate longer within the community.  The same principle applies to government spending. Now more and more municipalities are jumping on the "Buy Local" bandwagon by implementing spending policies that give local preference.

Government contracts have a tendency of being quite large and thus can give a small local business a very large hand up. Not only that, but local governments are in the middle of an economic crisis (which I'm sure that you've heard enough of by now...) where it is in a municipality's best interest to help bolster their local economy.

As of late, I have been stumbling across countless blogs and news articles pointing fingers at skeptical corporate messages, touting them as "localwashing." After thorough research, I've found that most situations actually are complying with the corporation's individual definition of local. However, the way in which each company defines local tends to differ -with some such as Whole Foods Market having different definitions for each region within the company.

Today, I came across this article which addresses the same issues while discussing what one state did in response. Check out the article below:

UPDATE!

The proclamation was presented in front of Denver City Council on Monday, September 21st. Check out the video here. Footage of the proclamation begins at 23:52. Mickki Langston, Executive Director of the Mile High Business Alliance can be found at 40:30.

Additionally, scroll down to the bottom of the document to see the full list of local businesses and organizations that signed the proclamation.

Last week, Sundari Kraft began a campaign to get a local farmers' market to mandate vendor labeling of food origins. "We need to restore integrity to our Farmers' Markets, and this will not happen unless we ask,"  she stated in an e-mail to the Denver Urban Gardens listserv. 

Greenprint Denver, The Denver Office of Economic Development and Connected Organizations for a Responsible Economy (CORE) recently launched the new Greener Denver Business program, a collaborative initiative supporting local businesses interested in greening their operations.