PORT ANGELES — A committee representing the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Port Angeles Business Association recommended Wednesday to both business groups that they consolidate their efforts and become “a united business community.”
The goal is to move forward beginning in October and continuing through 2015 — called “A Year of Transition” — with the goal to “unite as the Greater Port Angeles Business Organization [working title] effective 1/1/2016.”
The committee’s recommendations, which continue an effort called PA United, will go to both boards within the next few weeks.
All 11 members of the 16-member committee who attended Wednesday’s meeting voted for the recommendations, formulated in previous study sessions.
The chamber board will meet Oct. 10 and could present the plan to the general membership soon after that, Chamber President Todd Ortloff, station manager at KONP radio, said in an interview after the meeting.
‘Trial marriage’
Ortloff said a joint-committee format that the committee recommended be established could be considered a “trial marriage” between the two business groups.
Whether the chamber and PABA would continue as separate organizations in addition to working together in an umbrella organization would be determined later by the memberships of both groups.
“The work of this committee is done,” said Ortloff, a committee member.
“Now we have to wait for the board(s) to speak to that recommendation.”
A PABA board meeting has yet to be scheduled, board President Jack Glaubert said. The PABA membership would vote on a final proposal.
As far as the PABA is concerned, “everyone has voted to go forward, but how it’s done has not been decided yet,” Glaubert said.
“I’m walking away from this thing today feeling good about it because we had a unanimous vote,” committee member Ed Bedford of Bedford’s Sodas/BRP Enterprises said after the vote.
“It’s another step to get where we need to be.”
PA United
The PA United effort, spearheaded by former Clallam County Economic Development Council director Jim Haguewood, now a business consultant, and other local business leaders, began earlier this year directed at unifying the chamber, PABA and the Port Angeles Downtown Association into one organization to eliminate duplication and more effectively “expand the role of business involvement and influence throughout the greater Port Angeles community.”
The downtown association bowed out of the PA United efforts in late spring, saying it wasn’t a good fit for its downtown merchants.
The chamber and PABA continued with it.
The joint chamber-PABA committee — eight members from each group — was charged by the boards of both organizations “to come together to develop a united plan.”
The committee began meeting in August. Wednesday’s final meeting was chaired by John Brewer, publisher and editor of the Peninsula Daily News.
Its recommendations
Following a proposal that came out of a PA United meeting July 10, the Joint Port Angeles Chamber/Business Association Consolidation Committee recommended that during “The Year of Transition,” joint chamber-PABA committees be established for focusing on business development and entrepreneurship, organization, government affairs, promotion and marketing, and Downtown/Main Street, an area currently the purview of the downtown association.
The two groups must adopt a leadership plan and strategic plan, the committee said, and “jointly invite the ENTIRE business community to participate,” including businesses not members of either the chamber or PABA.
“Further,” according to the committee’s recommendation, “between October 2014 and January 2015 both organizations will:
“1. Advise all members of the committee structure and have members identify one or more committees within which they wish to participate.
“2. Identify up to two individuals to assume initial leadership in the standing up of each committee.
“3. Structure each organization to recognize the New Leadership Plan (effective 1/1/2016) such that each group, values and embraces . . . work being done, and generally defers to the committees’ proposed actions.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
