PORT ANGELES — A lackluster vote on bylaw changes by Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce members has led to the demise of plans to dramatically reorganize the group.
Only 53 of 411 chamber members returned ballots on the restructuring by the April 6 deadline — short by eight votes the 61 needed to validate the election.
The results were presented last Friday to the chamber board, Executive Director Russ Veenema said Wednesday.
Needed 15 percent
Though 45 members voted yes and eight no, the voting total fell short of the 15 percent of membership who needed to participate, meaning the bylaws will stay the same through 2015, chamber Past President Todd Ortloff said Wednesday.
“I am disappointed,” Ortloff said.
“We responded to what we felt the chamber members were looking for.”
Chamber President Jim Moran was out of town this week and did not respond to emails and voice messages requesting an interview.
Ortloff, radio KONP general manager, said that for now, the chamber will focus on finding a replacement for Executive Director Russ Veenema, who is retiring in December.
Veenema, who earns $89,000 a year after 15 years at the chamber’s helm, will receive all of the $42,000 in deferred compensation he is owed by the time he leaves, Ortloff said.
The failure of the change in bylaws also means the death, for at least 2015, of a task force model upon which the proposed umbrella business group PA United was proposed last year and became the foundation of the proposed bylaws.
Office space sharing
But a vestige of the ill-fated PA United effort remains: The chamber and the Port Angeles Downtown Association are negotiating a lease to share office space and expenditures at the chamber-run visitor center on Railroad Avenue.
PA United grew out of a chamber luncheon meeting in December 2013 that led to proposing a potential merger of the chamber, downtown association and Port Angeles Business Association.
The goal was to coordinate economic development efforts among the business groups by combining operations and saving on administrative costs.
But the downtown association withdrew last summer.
And the business association was opposed to restructuring the chamber into a task-force-based group in which PABA would not have a dedicated seat on the chamber’s board of directors.
Ortloff took heart from the 5-1 margin of approval among the minority of chamber members who voted.
“Had we gotten more people to engage in the vote, it would have obviously been overwhelmingly approved,” he said.
“We just have a lot of people who didn’t want to participate in voting. We have to figure out what that means.”
Ortloff said a more pressing concern is forming a chamber committee in the next month to begin looking for Veenema’s replacement.
PADA President Josh Rancourt, general manager of Country Aire Natural Foods, lauded the organization’s pending move from 208 N. Laurel St. to the visitor center about two blocks northeast at 121 E. Railroad Ave.
“We are saving money in rent and expenditures for the association, and it obviously allows a closer working relationship between the association and chamber, and allows us access to the visitor center and to inform visitors about downtown,” Rancourt said Wednesday.
“The idea that PA United had of all these organizations working together is still alive.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
