The Putnam County Business Community Speaks: Why We’re Going Back to Basics

The Putnam County Business Community Speaks: Why We’re Going Back to Basics

The Putnam County Business Council was founded for one reason. To be the independent, non-government-funded voice of the Putnam County business community. Not a political organization. Not a government agency. A business advocacy organization. Period.

The pandemic pulled us in a different direction and honestly, it needed to. PPP loans, SBA guidance, Board of Health coordination. We were Command Central when businesses needed us most. But like so many things after COVID, momentum slowed and we drifted from what we were built to do.

We’re back. And we’re going back to basics.

That means listening to YOU. Compiling what we hear. And putting it directly in front of the elected officials who have the power to do something about it. We know our legislators are juggling an enormous amount and we respect that. Our job is to make it easier  to bring them the information and context they need to understand what’s actually happening on the ground in Putnam County so we can all work toward real solutions together.

That’s what the Putnam County Business Council Legislative Priorities campaign is all about.

HOW THIS WORKS

Through our podcast series, The Voice of Putnam County Business, we’re sitting down with owners and leaders from across the county asking one question: what’s getting in your way?

Every conversation feeds our Legislative Priorities Survey at putnamcountybusinesscouncil.com/legsurvey. Every response gets compiled into the Putnam County Business Council Annual Legislative Priorities Report. This December, elected officials at the county, state, and federal level will be invited to sit down with the business community face to face. And we expect them to come.

This is not a report that gets handed off and forgotten. This is a conversation. And it starts now.

WHAT WE’RE HEARING

We’ve been out there and the same issues keep coming up across industries that couldn’t be more different from one another. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a pattern. And patterns are exactly what policymakers need to see.

Health insurance is hitting everyone hard. James Dain of N. Dain’s Lumber Company opened up his records and walked us through six years of increases — five to nine percent annually, then fourteen percent last year, and a projected twenty-eight percent this year. He pays one hundred percent of his employees’ healthcare and that commitment is getting harder to keep. James Matero of Jaymark Jewelers in Cold Spring is in the same boat with seven employees he’s determined to take care of. And both of them pointed to something that makes it worse for Putnam specifically — the county is so small that many providers simply don’t operate here. Brokers hear “Putnam County” and the options shrink immediately.

Heidi Snyder, owner of Drug World in Cold Spring, has taken this fight all the way to Albany and Washington D.C. She’s been advocating for pharmacists’ ability to test and treat, PBM transparency, and the survival of independent pharmacies for years. The PAPA bill has passed both houses of the State Legislature with bipartisan support and is sitting on the Governor’s desk. This is exactly the kind of issue our report is built to elevate.

Workforce is the other word we keep hearing. Garrett Noach, president of Lamothermic in Brewster, a precision investment casting manufacturer serving aerospace, defense, and energy runs sixty-five employees across three shifts and is in the middle of a million dollar modernization. He’s competing for workers against states where labor costs a fraction of what it does here. James Dain hears it from his contractors constantly. He works with BOCES and local youth programs but points to a structural problem that nobody wants to talk about: School districts lose funding when students choose trade schools over college. That’s a built-in disincentive baked right into the system. James Matero can’t find bench jewelers. The demand is real and the pipeline is empty.

Then there’s the red tape. Garrett Noach has water running through his production floor. Two to three inches of it. Decades of upstream development have sent it straight into his building and he has been trying to get it resolved for years. He’s called town supervisors, county executives, state assemblymen, senators. Every single one has pointed him somewhere else. He said it better than we ever could: “Don’t tell me you love me when I’m leaving. Love me while I’m here.” Lamothermic has been in Brewster for forty years. They’ve turned down relocation offers. We want to make sure they never have reason to reconsider.

Arielle Honovich, founder of Ridge Ranch in Patterson, had to file an Article 78 lawsuit just to get into Putnam County’s Agricultural District despite running a fully functioning farm with cattle, donkeys, goats, and chickens on a large parcel of land. She won. And when she did, she opened the door for other farms that year too. Her ask is simple: elected officials need better education on farming and the industries in their own backyard. We are committed to helping make that happen.

And then there’s Cold Spring. Craig Muraszewski has run the Cold Spring General Store for twelve years and watched the village become a destination. TikTok sends international visitors pouring off Metro North on weekends now. Five to seven thousand people on a busy day. One building. Two bathrooms. Parking being reduced. Signage that discourages visitors. And the businesses generating the sales tax and the jobs are caught right in the middle. Craig’s message is simple: Tourism promotion is great but what Cold Spring actually needs is infrastructure. Bathrooms. Parking. Support. Not more advertising. This is a conversation that needs to happen between the village, the county, the state, and Metro North and we intend to put it on the table in December.

WHY PUTNAM COUNTY IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR

Every single person we’ve sat down with could have left. Garrett Noach has been offered a way out and turned it down. Arielle Honovich fought her own government and stayed. Craig Muraszewski’s retirement plan turned into two businesses running seven days a week. James Dain is six generations deep in this region. Heidi Snyder drives from Rockland County because this community has earned her loyalty.

Putnam County is growing. The numbers show it. The question is whether our policy environment grows with it or whether we make it too hard for the people who are already here and already invested to stay.

YOUR VOICE BELONGS IN THIS REPORT

The survey takes just a few minutes. Your answers go directly into the Annual Legislative Priorities Report and that report goes directly to the officials we are inviting to the table this December. We expect them to come. And when they do, we want them to hear from as many of you as possible.

Take the survey at putnamcountybusinesscouncil.com/legsurvey.

The full podcast series and all campaign resources are at putnamcountybusinesscouncil.com.

The Putnam County Business Community Speaks. Make sure you’re part of the conversation.