Chamber President Has High Hopes For '12

With a new year and new administration on the horizon, Harrison Chamber of Commerce President Ada Angarano said she is optimistic that the town's small businesses will find success in 2012.

Angarano said the combination of a slowly improving economy and renewed optimism in town as a whole has her excited about the year to come. Excited enough that she plans to re-build the chamber of commerce, which has backed off its involvement in the local business scene over the last year.

"I'm going to bring it back to life again," Angarano said. In 2012 she will work to seek out new chamber members and hopes to organize small gatherings, regular meetings and mailings promoting local business.

Although not major investments, Angarano said merchants in the chamber are excited to be more involved in town policy this year. Angarano said she has stayed away from discussions with town leadership after several disagreements with out-going Mayor/Supervisor Joan Walsh in 2010.

That year, Angarano for five months, citing a difference in opinion between the two. Angarano later that year, but hasn't been collecting member dues or meeting with town leaders on a regular basis.

With a new administration taking office in 2012, Angarano said she is excited about what is to come. 

"There's so much positivity in the air that it's going to go from one person to the next and it's going to pick this town up," Angarano said. "We're going to call it the re-birth of Harrison."

This will be Angarano's seventh year as chamber of commerce president. She said she hopes to organize regular meetings with town leadership next year to keep the town board in tune with any developments on the local business front. 

Most of Harrison's businesses are small "mom and pop" style stores, so the chamber operates on a very small budget. Angarano runs the organization from an office in her home and member dues are only about $50. With her limited budget, Angarano hopes to focus on small, aesthetic, projects like rebuilding awnings and re-painting some older storefronts to make downtown more appealing to shoppers.

"We need to start looking the way we should; and the way we did once in the past," Angarano said.

Early indications during the holiday shopping season also show encouraging trends. Angarano said local stores are reporting good sales early on, always an important development for small stores that rely on sales this time of year to get through the winter. 

"From what I see in the sales for Christmas and the shopping and money going around being spent... things good are happening," Angarano said. "I see things on the up."