By Felicity Hardee
Attorney, Bulkley,Richardson & Gelinas
Amherst Area Chamber Board of Directors 

This guest post is part of a series by the Chamber's Board of Directors

The Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce has done a tremendous job of facilitating opportunities for members of the community to get to know our future congressman Jim McGovern.  Recently, I was delighted to hear from Tony Maroulis that Congressman McGovern was going to be in town this week and had a chance to introduce myself when the congressman and his staff were visiting Atkins Farms this week (BTW: Pauline is doing a fabulous job of maintaining excellent selection and service under extraordinarily trying circumstances; please do check out Atkins http://www.atkinsfarms.com/ and support our South Amherst business anchor).  Thanks to the chamber’s coordination of this event, I had a few precious minutes of the congressman’s time one-on-one.  We talked about the economy, budget cuts and the now (in)famous “fiscal cliff” off of which the country will be driving if Congress does not act by the end of the year.  While Congressman McGovern had no easy answers to any of these issues, I was incredibly impressed with his compassion, intelligence and likeability.

Thanks very much to the chamber and all it does to advance the interests of our members with our federal, state and local legislators!