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Regional Councils

Regional Councils

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced early in his term that he'd be creating a set of "regional economic councils" to build plans for funding economic development across New York, from the ground up.

In the summer of 2011 he finally announced some of the details of the program, to be led by Lieutenant Governor Robert Duffy.  The ten councils each have dozens of members, and are charged with gathering input from the public and business leaders, and creating a plan by November 14.  Those plans will be pitted against each other for a pot of $1 billion in grants, incentives, and tax relief from various state agencies.  The winners will get more funding, the losers will get less.

But other details - like whether funding will be available past the initial term, and who will serve on the board that decides who wins and who loses - have not been released.

The Innovation Trailis looking for your feedbackabout what your regional economic priorities are, and what you want your community to look like once the councils have completed their task.