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Chamber directories gone-along with the publisher
By Kara Chalmers
The company that produced the Chamber of Commerce's Saratoga Directory for the past seven years seems to have disappeared, and the 12,000 directories that were due in the Chamber office Oct. 30 are also missing.
Mosher-Adams Inc. on Oct. 29 filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, liquidation of assets, according to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, where the company was based. The company's phone lines rang without answer last week, and its website was inaccessible.
According to the court, the attorney representing Mosher-Adams is Stephen Moriarty, who could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
The Chamber of Commerce distributes the Saratoga Directory, which include lists of local restaurants, hotels and schools, to its members, real estate agents, tourists and residents each year. According to executive director Abby Krimotat, the chamber acted as a go-between for Mosher-Adams and the 88 advertisers in this year's directory. However, the contracts were between Mosher-Adams and the individual advertisers, and advertisers' checks were payable to Mosher-Adams.
According to Krimotat, the advertisers paid an independent contractor for Mosher-Adams up front. Claire McBride, whose name appears at the bottom of Mosher-Adams' advertiser contracts as the publisher's representative, declined to comment.
Krimotat and her assistant, Vanessa Hawkins, will now print and publish the directories themselves, starting completely from scratch. She expects the process will take a couple of months, but the directories will be published, she said.
The advertisements in the directory totaled some $25,000, which is the amount the Chamber board of directors on Oct. 27 allocated to Krimotat to produce a new directory. The amount is about one-fourth of the Chamber's annual budget.
The money, which includes profits from Celebrate Saratoga!, would have been spent on more events or on upgrading the Chamber's computer programs, brochures and office expenses if this emergency had not arisen, Krimotat said. The chamber treasurer, Monica Bailey, would not comment further on how this extra expense will be funded.
Krimotat said her next step is to send complaints to the Oklahoma City District Attorney, from the chamber and from each advertiser. But she said she is unsure whether the chamber will pursue litigation.
From now on, Krimotat said publishing the directory will never take place out of state. The chamber will either use a local or member-owned production company or will produce the directory in-house.
"The only good thing that has come out of this is that we will be in charge of [the directory] ourselves," she said. "And a few years down the road, people will be willing to advertise with us since the Chamber came through this time."
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
