This week saw the inaugural session of the Micron Community Engagement Committee, a group comprising nearly two dozen local, regional and state leaders of the community organizations and economic development agencies.
They’re working with the tech giant on turning public feedback from these sessions into a Community Priorities Document that will be submitted to the federal government.
Tim Penix, vice president of the SUNY Syracuse Educational Opportunity Center, a job training organization, is co-chair of the committee, which he calls unprecedented, and feels has a reach beyond Micron’s arrival locally.
"We're being watched from outside Syracuse, and it’s not about SU basketball either!" said Penix. "It's about what is happening there. What makes this company, what made the state, the governor decide, we want to have these documents that are going to guide this community for the next 25 years?"
In particular, guiding issues like supporting the region's under-represented populations and workforce training, as well as childcare and housing, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul's administration.
At the Committee engagement session on Wednesday, held in the overflowing cafeteria of the Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central, some of the more than 100 community members in attendance expressed concerns that local minority groups will not get equitable access to Micron employment opportunities.
WAER asked Penix what he would say to them: "I would say to them the same things that I say to myself: We have got to be involved in sure that it does happen. And being involved starts with being in these workshops, these brainstorming [sessions] and being involved on the committees to ensure that structurally, not topically. But structurally, these efforts are embedded."
Penix also lauded Micron for commitment to long-term equity issues, but did not immediately share what those initiatives were.
Committee members say all feedback from — and recordings of — the public sessions will be made available on the website of Empire State Direct, the state’s economic development agency.
