Members expect growth: Q1 2025 Advocacy Survey Results: 4/7/2025

Survey shows Chamber membership expects business growth, uncertain about tariffs
 
The Governmental Affairs Committee of the Greater Taylor Chamber of Commerce released the results of its first Quarterly Membership Survey today.
 
More than 11% of the Chamber’s membership responded to the survey which gaged interest in topics that ranged from the 2025 business climate to the importance of current political issues to views on City of Taylor departments and the Chamber itself.
 
The online survey was conducted March 15-28.
 
“Honestly, we’d like a higher participation rate, but for our first membership-wide survey, this isn’t bad,” said Joe Gonzalez, chair of the committee and a member of the Chamber board. “This gives us a solid baseline going forward.”
 
According to the survey, Chamber members have a positive outlook on the business environment in 2025 with 75% of respondents saying that the outlook was the same or better than 2024. Only 16% believed it would be worse.
 
However, more than 40% of respondents are unsure what impact, if any, tariffs will have in their business. The rest of those who responded were evenly split on the question of whether tariffs will hurt their business.
 
“We’ll conduct these surveys every three months or so,” Gonzalez said. “They are important because they help us align our core efforts to our membership.”
 
An overwhelming 84% of respondents said they believe local control is important to their businesses because they believed it is easier to hold local elected officials accountable than state-level officials.
·      88% said that infrastructure had some or a great deal of an impact.
·       90% said that regulation had some or a great deal of an impact.
·      74% said public education had some or a great deal of an impact.
Regarding Chamber activities as they relate to advocacy, 92% said that the Chamber is a good advocate for business and 96% said the Chamber provides access for individual advocacy efforts.
 
Regarding city services, the Chamber membership is largely satisfied with most departments scoring 60% or greater when asked to rate based on if respondents agreed or strongly agreed that it was doing a good job.
 
The parks department scored highest at 75%. Developmental Services scored lowest at 42%.
 
That echoes comments left on many of the surveys.
 
“I would like to see the Chamber advocate for efficiencies in getting projects approved by the city,” said one response that mirrored several others. “Many builders have abandoned Taylor due to complexities in our rules and zoning, and our inability to maintain staff to get projects over the line.”
 
The comments called for better access to public transportation, efforts to address soaring commercial property taxes and insurance costs, more workforce housing, and bike lanes.
 
Complete results can be found on the Chamber’s website, taylorchamber.org.
 
For questions and media availability, please contact Tia Rae Stone, President and CEO of the Greater Taylor Chamber of Commerce, president@taylorchamber.org.
 
Note: Due to rounding and sampling, not all results will add up to 100.