SALEM - Salem attorney William J. Tinti, who is already the president of the Salem Partnership, has been elected chairman of a second major business group, the North Shore Chamber of Commerce. Tinti, Salem's former city solicitor, will take over the reins at the North Shore Chamber from Jim Wiltshire of True Form Industries in Wenham in November. Tint, who is in his first year as president of the Salem Partnership, will take over the chairmanship of the regional chamber and continue to advocate what he has been preaching for years a regional approach to common problems and economic development. Tinti said the region lags behind the rest of the country in regional planning because, in most of the country, county government is the dominant force in local government. In contrast, here in Massachusetts cities and towns control the local budgets and county government is weak with some calling for its abolition as an unnecessary layer of government. "We are backwards in comparison to the rest of the country," Tinti said. He said the 1,000-member North Shore Chamber attempts to fill that vacuum on regional issues with a legislative agenda and educational seminars for area businesses. He said local communities and business owners tend to be too parochial. "The North Shore Chamber has stepped into the void," Tinti declared. He said the North Shore Chamber's key initiative recently, has been the North Shore 2000 initiative, bringing together people in the public and private sectors to help realize a healthy future for the region. Tinti said the chamber will continue to work on economic development, bringing industry and jobs to the North Shore.While the economy has improved, Tinti said the area still needs to make up for job losses suffered during the recession. He said he will be testifying before Gov. William Weld's Advisory Committee on Economic Development which is trying to find way to bring together state agencies and quasi-public agencies to provide credit and capital for the region. The region has been hit hard by bank credit crunch and Tinti was one of the first in the area to point out the problem and call for  action.. He has drawn parallels between the economic problems of the early 1970s and the late 1980s. Tinti served for seven years as chief legal adviser to former Salem Mayor Jean A. Levesque. He is also a former chairman of the Salem Redevelopment Authority and in that role was chief architect of the city's ambitious urban renewal program begun in 1972.

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