Western Chester County Chamber of Commerce recently held our annual Legislative Roundtable at Westwood Fire Co., which brings together elected official and businesses owners to discuss current events taking place in our local government. We were proudly joined by State Rep. Dan Williams and State Rep. Danielle Friel Otten.
State Representative Danielle Friel Otten expressed how a minimum wage increase returns revenue into the local consumer driven economy. State Representative Dan Williams explained that we need to leverage multi-municipal planning and coordination across the county to address housing challenges.
Representative Friel Otten also referenced the importance of private and public coordination to solve infrastructure challenges on our roadways to ensure road development is in sync with current and upcoming development.
Both Representatives expressed that our region is in PennDOT’s Region 6 zone, which means that we compete for roadway funding with the City of Philadelphia. Due to sharing a zone with Philadelphia, the challenge of getting our roadway updates to become higher in priority arises.
Representative Williams communicated his support support for new budget items addressing childcare incentives to allow for opportunities to alleviate the access to childcare challenges.
“We need to fix childcare problems because we need to keep women in the workforce,” Friel Otten said. “We need women’s voices at the table.”
Representative Williams also proposed that a solution to healthcare gaps needs to be accessed by thinking innovatively towards new forms of healthcare and how we can offer services differently than we have in the past.
