A parting of the ways is coming for City, Chamber of Commerce
City is giving Chamber three years to find a new location
Groups hope to part friends
By Kate Carter
The city council last week came to a working consensus to negotiate a new contract with the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce, including a three-year phaseout of the Chamber's use of city property.
Mayor Nick Streit and Councilman Stan Bogosian will meet with two Chamber representatives and discuss the details of those steps.
The as-yet unscheduled meeting will be the first time the city council will meet with the Chamber to discuss its concerns that the contract between the two expired about two years ago and has yet to be renegotiated. The city annually pays the Chamber about $3,400, as well as provides about $33,000 in the form of nearly free rent.
The council is also concerned that the Chamber does not keep its executive committee or board of directors meetings open to the public. The council would prefer that while the Chamber uses city property (on which the Chamber pays only $1 a year in rent), it complies with the open-meeting policy of California's Brown Act, as all other city agencies do.
When the Chamber is no longer operating out of city property, it can do as it pleases, the council said at its meeting May 7.
However, Chamber Executive Director Kristin Davis, present at the meeting, later told the Saratoga News that the Chamber doesn't see itself as a city agency that must comply with the Brown Act. She also said that for the Chamber to comply with the council's request to have a council member on its board, it would have to change its bylaws, which could affect its nonprofit status.
But mostly, Davis said, the Chamber would have preferred to have been consulted in the council's months-long discussion about the future of the relationship between the city and the Chamber.
"I think the best thing for both the Chamber and the city is to work together and make that attempt first," she said.
The city council, however, has already expressed interest in formally separating from the Chamber and putting any money, goods or services that pass between them into a fee-for-service contract. That ideaæas well as the prospect of asking the Chamber to leave its offices on Saratoga-Los Gatos Road near Big Basin Way, which the city ownsæwas raised by council members Bogosian and Ann Waltonsmith in February.
"I think it will be better for both organizations in the long run to be separate," Bogosian said May 7.
Originally, concerns about the crossover between the two arose early this yearæwhile the council opposed the West Valley College Measure E capital improvements bond, the Chamber supported it. Council discussions to end its current relationship with the Chamber were perceived by some to be punishment for the Chamber's opposing stance.
While Davis said the Chamber still sees the council's concerns that way, Streit told the News that was not and currently is not the case.
"We were not trying to punish them," he said. "The city of Saratoga does not want to tell anybody how to run their business. Overall, it was that it's time to put this in legal form. The emotions have gone away, and now we're getting down to business."
He also said that the council has not yet formally met with the Chamber because it hadn't yet come to a consensus among its own members. Every time the council has discussed what to do about the Chamber, at least one council member has been missing, he said.
Last week, Vice Mayor Evan Baker was missing. However, Streit said that Baker has supported what the council proposed at that meeting.
The council agreed to discuss a phaseout of the Chamber's use of the building over three years, which Streit said should give the Chamber enough time to find a new location and a way to afford market-rate rent.
The council also agreed to require the Chamber, while it uses the city's building, to keep its meetings open and to allow a council member on its board. Streit said a similar arrangement was made between the city and Hakone Gardens without affecting the garden's nonprofit status.
In addition, the council agreed to negotiate a fee-for-service contract with the Chamber and to research the specifics of how much the city receives from the Chamber's services as well as how much the city should be paying for them. The council also said it would like to keep a contract with the Chamber for its annual Celebrate Saratoga street festival separate from an ongoing contract.
Throughout this, however, the council said it wanted to maintain a positive relationship with the Chamber and develop a long-term fee-for-service contract between the two.
"I don't want to see that the city and the Chamber are getting a divorce and we're never going to talk to each other again," Councilman John Mehaffey said, acknowledging that both are better served by helping each other.
Davis agreed, but said that she doesn't understand why the city wants to change things--she said the board has an open session, initiated a few months ago, before its monthly meetings; always welcomes presentations by outside individuals and organizations; always reports its activities and money use to the city; and benefits the city and community.
She said she didn't speak at the council meeting, even after council members asked for her comments, because she was there "strictly to gather information for the board." Also, she said she would prefer the board to work directly with the city so that each side can better understand the other.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
