We are writing to update you on a troubling new development that occurred just before the holidays last month in which the Town of Maine took legal action in an effort to block the comprehensive and ongoing planning for potential development of the tech park. Just before Christmas 2025, the town quietly filed an Article 78 proceeding challenging the Broome County IDA’s authority to purchase property. The town sought a restraining order to prevent the IDA from having any meaningful conversations with property owners about potentially buying their land. The court initially granted the town’s request, and the IDA was temporarily no longer able [...]

Just ahead of the Christmas holiday, the Town of Maine took legal action to try to prevent the Broome County IDA from communicating with landowners who are participating in — or even merely interested in learning more about — our preliminary work to explore the possibility of developing the Broome Technology Park in the towns of Maine and Union. It is one thing to file a lawsuit seeking to block individuals from exercising their ability to control their own property — a fundamental right that dates to this country’s founding. It is another to, as was done in this case, [...]

Good evening and thank you to Supervisor Napierala and the members of the town board for giving me a few minutes to speak tonight.   My intention for this evening is to give you a brief update on where we are in the process of exploring the conceptual development of the Broome Technology Park. And please keep in mind, this is a very lengthy process. If you take one thing away from my remarks this evening, I hope it is this:   A great deal of time, effort, analysis, and care is going into our process to ensure that this [...]

The Southern Tier knows what it means to build. My home region spent much of the 20th Century building technologies that changed global industries, powered the American workforce and laid the foundation for innovation that continues to shape our future. But no matter how advanced the product or how skilled the talent, none of it works without power. Reliable energy has long been one of Upstate’s greatest advantages — but that edge is no longer guaranteed. In early June, the state’s electric grid operator issued a report detailing that the reliability margin — the gap between demand and total supply [...]

Binghamton University professor Bahgat Sammakia writes about how the region is once again leading the way in advanced technologies. Amid all the talk of an upstate high-tech renaissance, the past can be prologue here in the Southern Tier. Once driven by institutions like IBM and Singer Link, our region has maintained its spirit of innovation even as the landscape has shifted, thanks in part to the long-standing commitment of the higher education community. The clean energy transition, for example, requires advances in battery technology pioneered by our own Nobel laureate M. Stanley Whittingham. SUNY Broome is a key partner in [...]

Stacey Duncan Special to the USA TODAY Network Walking into Maine-Endwell High School for a recent public hearing on the Broome Technology Park project was a full-circle moment for me. Growing up, my family was supported by the technology-related industries for which Binghamton was known throughout the 20th Century. My father was a mechanical engineer for Singer Link in Kirkwood – a job that, at the time, offered stability and fostered a close-knit, upwardly mobile community. I experienced first-hand the slow demise of Link and IBM and witnessed the negative ripple effect that had on our local economy. Sitting in my old high [...]

Stacey Duncan Special to the USA TODAY Network Recent high-tech growth across upstate has been driven by a variety of factors, including significant R & D investment by the state and the aggressive site preparedness work of counties and regional economic development organizations. But another key factor is often overlooked — the availability of an abundance of power, along with the water and wastewater capacity required by microchip fabs, life science manufacturing, data centers and related supply chain businesses. Like any other resource, energy is finite. If we want to continue our upward trajectory, we must ensure continued access to, and [...]