Specifically, they are trying to come up with a new fee-for-service contract to replace one that expired two years ago, come to a better collaboration on the Celebrate Saratoga! street festival and establish a phase-out of the Chamber's use of city property.

More generally, though, almost everyone involved agrees that the most important thing for the group to accomplish is to develop better communication between both parties, the lack of which has hampered mutual understanding and support for years. And most agree that the meetings are helping accomplish that.

Mayor Nick Streit, Councilman Stan Bogosian and City Manager Dave Anderson met with Chamber Executive Director Kristin Davis, board member Connie Palladino and advisor to the board Ray Froess for the third time regarding those issues in a closed meeting Aug. 29.

"I think we're on the right track," Streit said after the meeting. "If everybody keeps a positive attitude on this, we can settle this thing in 60 to 90 days."

"Every meeting we go to, I think we have the opportunity to inform Stan and Nick more each time of what the Chamber actually does," Davis said.

These past four months have been plagued by the very roots of the problem—meeting delays and miscommunications, particularly regarding a proposed contract for the city to pay the Chamber in exchange for services. After some back and forths, the Chamber presented the city with a list of possible services, of which the city chose two for it to valuate: tourist information and city information distribution. The Chamber then tallied the costs associated with those tasks and two weeks ago presented the city with a number: $21,000 to do the job. It also valued some of the costs for doing business promotion and fielding citizen inquiries, which brought the total amount to $43,000. Currently, the city pays the Chamber about $3,400 a year and allows it to use its property at a value of about $33,000 a year, according to city documents.

At the Aug. 29 meeting, the city told the Chamber that it merely wanted its contract to concentrate on the visitor and information dispersal activities, both Streit and Davis said. Streit said the city wants to work more closely with the Chamber so that its business promotion activities don't overlap with the work done by the city's economic development coordinator Danielle Surdin. That could be better done by developing individual work plans with the Chamber rather than including that work in a more general contract for services, he said.

Davis said that the Chamber, then, will focus mostly on promoting the businesses of its own members and will forward citizen information requests to the city. She also said that the city would purchase copies of the Chamber's map and business directory through separate agreements if it wants to use them.

The group is still working out the details of the contract and trying to negotiate an appropriate amount. Also, the city council, which must sign off on any agreement, has not been involved as a group with the discussions, which are merely preliminary to any final decision. That decision, Streit said, could occur in the next few months.

That decision could also encompass topics that had seemed to already be very near conclusion—what the Chamber and the city will do about the property on Saratoga­Los Gatos Road, owned by the city and rented by the Chamber for $1 a year. Davis said the Chamber board has said it would move out because, were it to remain, the city council made clear at its May 7 meeting, the Chamber would have to adhere to California's open-meeting policy, the Brown Act, as well as allow two council members on its board of directors and one on its executive committee.

Davis said that the Chamber doesn't believe it should have to adhere to the Brown Act and its many regulations, as it is not a public agency but a private, membership-driven nonprofit. She also said it would have to change its bylaws to have council members on its boards, which could affect its nonprofit status.

She said the Chamber board decided that it could not comply with those requirements after that council meeting and a May 15 meeting between the Chamber and city representatives. Since then, she said, it has been taking steps to move prior to December, the time limit mentioned in meetings with the city for the Chamber to occupy the property without meeting its requirements. Streit said that limit was never approved by the full council as a final decision.

However, in a conversation with the Saratoga News last week, Anderson said the reason the city was leaving the building was because of the poor shape the building is in. Davis expressed surprise at this and provided a copy of an email she received from Anderson June 14 that shows he was aware that the Chamber would not be able to remain in the property without meeting the city's requirements.

Anderson later told the News that he "misspoke," acknowledging that "the Chamber assumed it would have to move out." Streit said Anderson had been confused by a conversation he overheard between Streit and Davis in which she stated that were the Chamber to remain in the building, the building would need to be retrofitted. Streit also added that the city's requirements had not been put in writing, and Anderson said they had not been enforced.

"[The Chamber] verbally said they couldn't meet those requirements," Streit said. "Nothing's been put in writing."

Nevertheless, the Chamber has been acting as though the city means what it says and has been looking for a new place to go. It thought it had found a possible new location on Big Basin Way, next door to Saratoga Travel, managed by HMS Realty Services. Davis said the Chamber was concerned, however, that the city would not allow the Chamber, which it doesn't consider a retail operation, to use the property without applying for a conditional use permit. The city is restricting much of the Big Basin Way locations to retail use.

The Chamber expressed its concerns to the city, and in deference to them Tom Sullivan, city community development director, granted the Chamber a zone clearance to use the property, provided that 25 percent of the site be devoted to retail sales. Davis said the Chamber intends to sell mugs, T-shirts and other items to promote Saratoga without competing with other businesses.

But last week Davis said it is looking less likely that the Chamber will get to move into the property. And, when asked if the Chamber had the money for rent, she said, "We have no choice."

However, at the Aug. 29 meeting, the city opened the discussion up even further by entertaining a suggestion by the Chamber from earlier this summer that it rent the city-owned building at market rate and thus not be subject to the requirements.

The suggestion had been made to Anderson through a June 10 email from Davis, to which he replied, June 14, that the idea "didn't seem to resonate" with Streit or Bogosian. After the Aug. 29 meeting, Streit told the News he and Bogosian didn't remember being approached with that idea earlier in the summer, but added that he didn't want to focus on what had happened in the past but move forward to a solution.

Streit also said that the other council members were not aware of the possible renting arrangement and that, after the city researches how much it would cost to fix the building's problems and how much it could fairly rent the building, it will be brought before the council at either its Sept. 18 or Oct. 2 meeting. He said that, if it takes longer to come up with a lease agreement than the tentative December deadline for the Chamber to remain there without opening its meetings, the city could be flexible with the Chamber until an agreement is reached.

However, Davis said the Chamber isn't sure it even wants to remain in the city's building. She said a location on Big Basin Way could provide the Chamber with more visibility and help it better support its members. She said she, personally, would prefer to move.

Next week the Saratoga News will present a story that compares the relationship of the city and Chamber in Saratoga to similar relationships in nearby communities and throughout the state.